How ot remove the needlessly large main menu from desktop?

[syd_oc]

Hey, I'm pretty new to this, so please bear with me if I ask a stupid question. I've installed Ubuntu 9.10 on my notebook, and it works like a charm. However, I'd like to remove the main menu panel on the left, since I prefer using the panel button and / or a AWM dock. How is this done?

Note, I'm NOT talking about the top panel, as I'd like to keep it and also found out how to remove it. I'm talking about the panel on the left of this screen shot, the one that starts with "Favorites".

Thanks in advance for any help.

Screen: http://imgur.com/fSrSe

[QIII]

On your NOTEbook or your NETbook?

That looks like UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix).

[syd_oc]

That looks like UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix).

Netbook, hence the tag in the topic. Does it matter?

[syd_oc]

Is switching from Gnome to KDE an option?

[QIII]

It only matters in that I was wondering whether you really wanted to run UNR if you have a notebook, not a netbook...