Docky, Cairo or AWN?

[jcd29]

Which one do you use and why?

[sendblink23]

Which one do you use and why?

I use Docky, because it actually runs/reacts much faster than the rest plus its simpler..... but on the others you can do allot more than on Docky you can't do(especially allot of special effects, tons of themes & things that you see on OSX docks)

Its actually just a choice of personal taste

Wait for other to keep say other opinions

Cairo with OpenGL is pretty cool

[kerry_s]

usually i run awn, but i wanted a change, so this time it's dockbarx which is actually a gnome-panel applet.

[PaulReaver]

docky, for a purely trivial reason.

I like the available themes. :D

[Version Dependency]

I use AWN. Looks good...it's stable...the applets work (great if you go panel-less)...and it now supports multiple instances.

Tried Docky first but it acted strangely and caused my computer to slow to a crawl. I installed it right after I installed Ubuntu for the first time, and I actually thought Ubuntu was buggy. Then I realized after closing Docky that everything worked much better. Not sure what the deal was there.

Cairo Dock was cool with all it's effects but I like to run a panel-less desktop, and it's applets were not all that great. But I like where Cairo Dock is heading.

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

AWN because it allows me to theme it the way I want to without jumping through hoops.

[smellyman]

I use AWN. Looks good...it's stable...the applets work (great if you go panel-less)...and it now supports multiple instances.

Tried Docky first but it acted strangely and caused my computer to slow to a crawl. I installed it right after I installed Ubuntu for the first time, and I actually thought Ubuntu was buggy. Then I realized after closing Docky that everything worked much better. Not sure what the deal was there.

Cairo Dock was cool with all it's effects but I like to run a panel-less desktop, and it's applets were not all that great. But I like where Cairo Dock is heading.

same thing happened to me with Docky. It was slow and unresponisive. Maybe it has to do with what video drivers used?

Anyway, I use AWN.....

[Giant Speck]

I actually use DockbarX. I've tried docks, and I have to admit that most of them are nice, but I always come running back to gnome-panel.

[Rodney9]

Tint2

[Nightstrike2009]

I used to use AWN but didn't like the way you couldnt drag and drop icons into it, I now use Docky and haven't looked back it looks ace and has all the features I want and more (Search function and clock/callender).

My only concern is i want to ubgrade to gnome3.0 when its ready and maybe forced to dump docky then because of docky/compiz not playing nice with gnome 3.0 (at least thats what ive heard).

[drpjkurian]

I use cairo now but i feel awn is better than cairo for it is more stable...

[kerry_s]

I use cairo now but i feel awn is better than cairo for it is more stable...

i use to get a lot of "oops" with the awn applets, which is why i decided to try something else, i liked the unity look & prefer the gnome-panel, so dockbarx + compiz seems to be the right fit for me. i get all the function of the unity dock + i can set it up how i want. i have dockbarx show multiple windows using scale. i use the gnome-main-menu app browser for apps & control center.

here's pics.

[XubuRoxMySox]

I have a silly question: What's the difference between a dock and a panel? I have a very pretty Xfce panel with launchers and applets (desktop weather, analog clock, and lotsa other cool stuff) all customized, translucent and everything. I have a second Xfce panel, invisible until I mouse over it, that is just my taskbar. From all I have read and all the screenshots I've seen, I still just don't understand how a dock is different from a panel, nor why a dock is supposed to be better than a panel.

I know this sounds like a newbie question, but I truly don't know, and I've been using Linux since Jaunty came out.

Thanks,
Robin

[TNT1]

I use AWN. Looks good...it's stable...the applets work (great if you go panel-less)...and it now supports multiple instances.

Cairo Dock was cool with all it's effects but I like to run a panel-less desktop, and it's applets were not all that great. But I like where Cairo Dock is heading.

Snap.

[ViperScull]

I used to use Cairo.

but since 9 months ago i find much more interesting the use of dockbarX.

[adwhitenc]

I have tried all of them and think they are all equally good. However, I have found no way to run JUST that and no panels. Sham too, it would have looked so cool.

[wkhasintha]

Recurring discussion material I guess...

[mrebanza]

Cairo and AWN feel too unstable for me . . . Docky x Talika is bliss for me!

http://thumbla.com/images/thumbs/screenfof.png (http://thumbla.com/images/?v=screenfof.png)

[Simian Man]

I never use more than one panel/dock; having multiple is just pointless and a waste of space in my opinion. Docky is nearly useless on its own until it has a main menu and a notification area, though it looks great. Cairo Dock is really messy. Awn is just perfect.

[jcd29]

For those who say Docky is slow: Do you use nvidia or ATI cards? And high end or regular computers?

One small complaint about Docky is how when you click it and there's, for example, two windows of Firefox open, it'll open both at the same time instead of just letting you choose. It's very minor since you can just right click and open the one you want, but still.

[Calash]

Cairo running the Unity theme. Very well done theme that frees up a lot of desk space for me.

[Ascenti0n]

I tried all of them, but in the end I got fed up with some of the errors in Cairo. I liked the simplicity of AWN.

In the end, I realised docking toolbars were mainly for show, so I switched to using the top shortcut bar (see attached). It's always available and never gets in the way, and guess what, I click on an icon and it opens the app. What more do you need? ):P

[tjeremiah]

AWN is all I need.

[Ric_NYC]

AWN doesn't require mono.

[coskierken]

I use Cairo. I set it on the side because I have found it takes up less desktop space there. I also hide it when not in use so I have a completely blank desktop. I minimize the gnome panel and then hide it, also. To me, realestate is prime. I have not tried AWN in quite a while now, but may since you asked the question. Hmmmm!

[A_T]

I'm happy with the panel. These launchers are so cheesy and are devoid of elegance - just horrible.

[koleoptero]

I use awn.


I used to use AWN but didn't like the way you couldnt drag and drop icons into it, I now use Docky and haven't looked back it looks ace and has all the features I want and more (Search function and clock/callender).

My only concern is i want to ubgrade to gnome3.0 when its ready and maybe forced to dump docky then because of docky/compiz not playing nice with gnome 3.0 (at least thats what ive heard).

You CAN drag and drop launchers on AWN.
You CAN use docky with gnome-shell, it has its own compositing and doesn't need compiz.


I have a silly question: What's the difference between a dock and a panel? I have a very pretty Xfce panel with launchers and applets (desktop weather, analog clock, and lotsa other cool stuff) all customized, translucent and everything. I have a second Xfce panel, invisible until I mouse over it, that is just my taskbar. From all I have read and all the screenshots I've seen, I still just don't understand how a dock is different from a panel, nor why a dock is supposed to be better than a panel.

I know this sounds like a newbie question, but I truly don't know, and I've been using Linux since Jaunty came out.

Thanks,
Robin

I've always said that the XFCE panel is a million times better than its gnome counterpart. When I used xfce for several months I never felt the need for anything else.
That being said, the dock combines launchers and tasks, that's the main difference. Plus it doesn't occupy a predefined space like the panel. At least in most default cases since you can use awn in panel mode with all the stuff a panel can have.

[23dornot23d]

Docky and Cairo are good .... even work ok in Gnome3 here are some examples (https://sites.google.com/site/000menu/home/gnome---3/gnome-shell)

Cairo Dock is on the right in the first video .....

Docky is on the bottom and on the left shows the drives - using docky ....

Not tried AWN on here yet ...... maybe will see if its ok .....

I prefer cairo-dock ..... as it is very easy to use and customize and the effects are good too ......

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

I tried all of them, but in the end I got fed up with some of the errors in Cairo. I liked the simplicity of AWN.

In the end, I realised docking toolbars were mainly for show, so I switched to using the top shortcut bar (see attached). It's always available and never gets in the way, and guess what, I click on an icon and it opens the app. What more do you need? ):P

There are certain cases where a dock can improve usability. For example I am typing this from my Linux desktop(1). However, I have a virtual machine running Windows 7 full screen on next desktop(2). Because AWN autohides, all I have to do to switch to my Chrome browser (in ubuntu) is put my mouse on the side of the screen and and click the Chrome browser on my dock. Automatically I am taken to the desktop(1) running ubuntu with my Chrome Browser maximized. There isn't any button I have to pass to give control back to the host machine. It's like my Ubuntu OS and My windows OS are merged into one. (Expose works also but it's so much nicer just to use the same tool that I'd be using on my Ubuntu desktop anyway). If I want to switch back to windows, its the same process except I just click the virtualbox icon on my dock.

[Simian Man]

I've always said that the XFCE panel is a million times better than its gnome counterpart. When I used xfce for several months I never felt the need for anything else.

I agree. Gnome Panel is a ridiculously bad piece of software. It doesn't autohide correctly, it doesn't let you choose which monitor panels go on and it sometimes forgets where all of the launchers go.

Also xfwm is way better than metacity.

[jcd29]

Just tested Docky again. It feels great.

[Half-Left]

I designed some Docky themes. I personally prefer Docky. Download (http://half-left.deviantart.com/gallery/?26704989#Docky-Themes)

[Slug71]

I agree. Gnome Panel is a ridiculously bad piece of software. It doesn't autohide correctly, it doesn't let you choose which monitor panels go on and it sometimes forgets where all of the launchers go.

Also xfwm is way better than metacity.

Yep, both my Ubuntu installs, Lucid & Maverick, have the XFCE desktop with Slim instead of GDM.

Using Docky on both.

[3Miro]

Neither of those. They all use way too much python and tend to slow down my machine. I am also not sure what is the extra functionality that they add (other than an applet or two that don't have counterparts for gnome or xfce panels). I know that many people are using them, maybe I am not getting something right here.

Of what I have tried, AWN seems to have most features, so I suppose I will go with that, if I ever start using one. For now, I mostly use XFCE with native panels.

[trentscott]

I like AWN slightly better -- it uses less resources than Docky and can be run with Compiz turned off. Docky is better for eye candy though.

Here's a walkthrough guide on installing AWN on 10.10:

http://trentscott.com/2010/10/12/mac-os-style-launcher-in-ubuntu-10-10-maverick-meerkat/

[gintovan]

None. A single Gnome panel with some shortcuts is all I need.
The docks just annoy the h*ll out of me for various reasons, but mostly because I hate when they take up too much screen estate, and I hate just as much to have them on autohide.

Meh, maybe I'm missing something that makes these dock's so cool :confused:

[earthpigg]

i like docky.

[Quadunit404]

I tried AWN, Cario Dock and Docky - and I'm sticking with AWN. Cario Dock was too difficult to configure as I wanted it to work and Docky felt too limited. AWN? I can make it work how I want it to in a few minutes.

[danbuter]

I really like AWN. The others had minor bugs for my computer.

[Khakilang]

I have not try any of this. Should have been more adventures and see what it can do.

[efren386]

AWN beacuse the first program that i discover in using Ubuntu :)

[ctrlmd]

i prefer Cario Dock then Docky

[berlinick]

Are there any specific requirements to hardware?
I have an HP Compaq 8510p with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 and Intel Core2 Duo T7700 2.4 GHz. Will be happy to here your hardware related experiences :)

P.S. Almost forgot. I'll be using Ubuntu 10.10 on the machine described above.
Right now I run Xubuntu 9.10 on a Dell Latitude C640. Despite all the good things I like a lot, this nice guy has a pretty weak graphic card, so I'm not thinking of a dock on this machine.

[koleoptero]

Are there any specific requirements to hardware?
I have an HP Compaq 8510p with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 and Intel Core2 Duo T7700 2.4 GHz. Will be happy to here your hardware related experiences :)

P.S. Almost forgot. I'll be using Ubuntu 10.10 on the machine described above.
Right now I run Xubuntu 9.10 on a Dell Latitude C640. Despite all the good things I like a lot, this nice guy has a pretty weak graphic card, so I'm not thinking of a dock on this machine.

That laptop would probably be OK running all 3 of them at the same time.

[berlinick]

Awesome! Thank you! :)

[hhh]

I never use more than one panel/dock; having multiple is just pointless and a waste of space in my opinion.
Agreed, I use gnome-panel with Talika.

[perspectoff]

I have a silly question: What's the difference between a dock and a panel? I have a very pretty Xfce panel with launchers and applets (desktop weather, analog clock, and lotsa other cool stuff) all customized, translucent and everything. I have a second Xfce panel, invisible until I mouse over it, that is just my taskbar. From all I have read and all the screenshots I've seen, I still just don't understand how a dock is different from a panel, nor why a dock is supposed to be better than a panel.

I know this sounds like a newbie question, but I truly don't know, and I've been using Linux since Jaunty came out.

Thanks,
Robin

And with Kubuntu (KDE) there are widgets. I don't worry about docks in Kubuntu.

A lot of the docking stuff is necessary for Gnome (in Ubuntu), which is a bit old-fashioned (IMO) and about to undergo a facelift, anyway.

[ajinkyaghorpade]

Actually, I had a pretty bad experience with Cairo Dock. It would sometimes freeze ridiculously. so, I had uninstalled it.

[KdotJ]

When I was using Fedora and Karmic/Lucid, I used Cairo-Dock (or "GLX-Dock"). I think it's great and has so many options to customise it. However, since I installed Maverick I thought I'd give AWN a spin... It has changed since the first time I tried i, and I have to say I am very impressed. It looks very clean and has all the things I need

[Cobracommand0]

I run both cairo-dock and AWN; Cairo for my right-sided dock with the majority of my launchers and AWN overlaid on the top task bar for clock/calender.

[SeanBlader]

In my ongoing effort little by little to remove more and more of the stuff on my laptop screen that I don't use and make the most of the application space I decided to try Cairo then when I couldn't get it to configure the weather location without crashing, or to actually display the notifications nicely, I decided I'd give AWN a try. It's not quite as flashy as Cairo with OpenGL, but it seems a lot more polished. So now I have 6 objects in what used to be the task bar: Clock, Weather, Notification panel (for Network Manager), power monitor, volume control, and the desktop switcher.

With it on auto-hide, I get the most out of my screen space. I could almost do the same thing with the default gnome panels by setting it to size 36, and using auto-hide, but then you can't turn off the text labels in the window list, and you can't make the window list background transparent either. So after a few hours of configuring AWN, and another few hours of living with it, I like it.