Tilix and Guake available from PPA for Ubuntu

In this article we are going to see a couple of terminal emulators for Ubuntu. There are many of them for our beloved operating system. I usually use Terminator but I always like to try different things like Tilix and Guake.

Tilix (previously called Terminix) and the Guake terminal emulator (about which a colleague already spoke in this same day blog) have had updates recently. Tilix and Guake are available from PPA for Ubuntu / Linux Mint.

Tilix and Guake terminal emulators

Install Tilix 1.5.8

Tilix (project formerly known as Terminix) 1.5.8 is a GTK3 terminal emulator. The application allows you to divide the terminals both horizontally and vertically. With this you can easily reorganize your work by dragging and dropping our windows.

One of its new features is that it includes a mode quake-like (the terminal appears at the top of the screen, and can be activated or deactivated with a key), save and load grouped terminals and much more.

The changes in Tilix 1.5.8 with respect to other versions are among others that window state is saved and restored between sessions. Sessions can be separated using drag and drop. They can also be reconnected to another Tilix window. Sessions can now be reordered using drag and drop. If Ctrl + C is assigned to copy shortcut, Tilix is ​​smart enough to copy only when text is selected. Added a new variable for titles in session scope for the title of the active terminal. Support for active GTK CSS style has been added so we can customize the title bar. These are just some improvements, if you want to know more you can check them on their website.

To install Tilix on Ubuntu 16.04, 16.10, 17.04 and 17.10 / Linux Mint 18.x, you can use the WebUpd8 PPA. To add the PPA and install Tilix, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/terminix && sudo apt update && sudo apt install tilix 

I do not leave the link directly to the Tilix.deb because this emulator will need some additional dependencies from the PPA.

To know how to install Tilix on other Linux distributions, report errors, etc., you can consult their website.

Install Guake 0.8.9

Guake is a dropdown terminal emulator. While the version that uses GTK3 is in development (in alpha), the stable version of Guake continues to use GTK2.

Application slides down from the top of the desktop when the F12 key is pressed. The same key will help us to fold the terminal. This functionality is inspired by the consoles used in games like Quake.

Guake has multi-monitor support, tabs, transparency, and is highly configurable. Although for me Tilix is ​​much more so.

This new version of Guake, 0.8.9, brings us changes with respect to previous versions. Some of them are that a new option was added that allows to run a script when the Guake window becomes visible. They have added an option to resize the terminal. Tabs now share the full screen width. In Unity a fixed screen size was set.

Guake 0.8.9 is available in the WebUpd8 Unstable PPA for Ubuntu 17.04, 16.10, 16.04 and 14.04 / Linux Mint 18.x and 17.x.

Thanks to this PPA, returning to the Guake version available in the official repositories in case you don't like the new version is very simple. The packages in this PPA are usually quite stable, although sometimes you may find unstable packages.

To add the PPA and install the latest Guake, we just have to open the terminal and use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable && sudo apt update && sudo apt install guake

If you don't feel like adding this PPA to your list of repositories, you can download the Guake .deb file from this link. You can also use the Software option of your Ubuntu to install this terminal.

To download the Guake source, report bugs, etc., you can check its GitHub page.

Now you can choose between Tilix and Guake. It is only a matter of finding which of these two terminal emulators best suits the needs of each.