Avant Window Navigator, Cairo Dock and Kiba Dock

May 27, 2008

Avant Window Navigator, Cairo Dock and Kiba Dock

Tagged Under : awn, cairo dock, desktop, dock, kiba dock, ubuntu

For those who like to have Mac OSX Dock style, here is the list of dock (according to my preference) which you can choose from.

Avant Window Navigator

Cairo-Dock

Kiba Dock

With one of these docks, you can get similar effect as the Mac OSX Dock for your Ubuntu. To get this three dock working on your Ubuntu, your computer must be able to support composition. You must also have a composite manager such as Compiz-Fusion and Beryl installed in your Ubuntu.

Avant Window Navigator

Avant Window Navigator (AWN) is a dock-like navigation bar for the Linux desktop that positions itself at the bottom of the screen. It can be used to keep track of open windows and behaves like a normal window list.

Watch Avant Window Navigator in action.

Installing Avant Window Navigator (AWN)

Open the terminal and edit your sources.list

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines to the end of the file:
For Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu intrepid main

For Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu hardy main

For Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu gutsy main

Save the file and exit. Then update your repository.

sudo apt-get update

Now you can install Avant Window Navigator

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-bzr awn-core-applets-bzr awn-manager-bzr

Now you can lunch Avant Window Navigator by going to Applications >> Accessories

Unisntalling Avant Window Navigator (AWN)

Type this line in the terminal

sudo apt-get remove –purge avant-window-navigator-bzr awn-manager-bzr awn-core-applets-bzr libawn-bzr

Configuring Avant Window Navigator (AWN)

Once you launch the AWN, right click on the end of the AWN and select Preferences.

To make AWN automatically start when you log in, check the box “Automatically start AWN on login” on the General tab. If this does not work, Go to System >> Preferences >> Sessions and add a new entry for the command avant-window-navigator, as seen in the example screenshot:

To add an applet to AWN, select the applet you want in the Applets tab and choose ‘Activate‘.

To add a launcher to the AWN, simply drag and drop the program from the menu to the AWN. Alternatively you can just click on the Launcher tab and add your own launcher.

Cairo-Dock

An light eye-candy fully themable animated dock for any Linux desktop. It has a family-likeness with OSX dock, but with more options. Here are some features it has.

The 3D view is equipped physical spaces
The dock is hidden automatically when a window is maximized
Supports multi dock
The applets are detachable and can act like widget/gadget
Launchers can launch keyboard shortcuts

Watch Cairo-Dock in action.

Installing Cairo-Dock

Download the latest deb files from Cairo-Dock download page. The files that you need are cairo-dock and cairo-dock-plug-ins.

Double click on cairo-dock and then cairo-dock-plug-ins package to install them.

Configuring Cairo-Dock

First launch Cairo-Dock from Applications >> System Tools >> Cairo-Dock. Cairo Dock will open the Manage Themes dialog. Select a theme and click OK (you can change this theme later if you want) and the dock will then launch. To change the theme right click on Cairo-Dock then go to Cairo-Dock >> Manage Themes

To add a launcher, drag and drop the program from the menu to the Cairo-Dock or right click on the Cairo-Dock and choose add a launcher.

To add sub dock (icon which containing launchers) simply right click on Cairo-Dock and press add a sub-dock.

To get more features in Cairo-Dock, you can add more applets. To do that, right click on Cairo-Dock, then go to Cairo-Dock >> Configure. In the configuration window, you can choose applets you want. Check the list of available applets here.

Tips

Check this documentation page which contains tonnes of information about Cairo-Dock.
To get stack like effect, go to the configuration window. Under Personnalization tab, change the default view for sub-docks to parabolic view.

Kiba Dock

Kiba is dock software made to run on various flavors of Linux and Unix. It was originally considered a trivial demonstration of the Akamaru physics engine, but it has become a serious project. Kiba replicates the functionality of the OSX Universal Dock in many ways, but is not an exact replica of Apple’s taskbar. It is similar in function to the variations on the taskbar found in WIndows, KDE, GNOME, and XFCE.

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