SimDock

There’s lots of dock programs out there for Linux, but there’s one that is unbeatable in speed, power, beauty, and overall awesomeness. And that is SimDock.

This little program doesn’t require compositing, and is not just a launcher bar, it’s a full-blown dock that you can use as in place of the window list applet in your panel (although I don’t know what you want to fill it with), or in OpenBox/FluxBox. And it intelligently uses Xrandr to stop windows from blocking it.

There are some bugs, though. Occasionally it crashes, and it doesn’t appear in all workspaces. The most severe bug, though, at least on my computer, is that it doesn’t detect when windows are closed, leaving the dock rather littered.

That said, it’s still very cool. If you’re using the Ubuntu Hardy Heron Beta, just install the package “simdock” via Synaptic or your favorite package program. Otherwise, go here. HOWEVER, if you’re using Ubuntu Gutsy, opt for the .tar.gz source archive, because no available package is out there for Gutsy that doesn’t require some hack, because of the dependencies the package uses…

1) Install dev packages:
sudo apt-get install build-essentials libwnck-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev libgconf-dev liborbit2-dev libgnome-dev libimlib2-dev
I think that’s all the packages you need, I’m not too terribly sure…
2) Unpack the archive. Because the archive is a svn snapshot, it extracts to “trunk”. Go in there, and give it the old:
./configure && make && sudo make install

To run, just type “simdock” in Terminal/<Alt-F2>

Overall, this is THE best dock program out there for speed, simplicity, and beauty - you can change the skin, but I haven’t found the need to yet. When they finally fix the aforementioned bugs, I’ll be the first one to try it out!