Plank is an alternative dock replacement for Ubuntu’s Unity with a much less requirement for system resource. And it’s simple interface and features make it smooth and fast. Which makes it perfect for systems with low system resources. But that doesn’t make it any less useful than other popular docks like cairo-dock. While it might be less flashy, it beats it with simplicity.
If you want to set up this slick dock on your Ubuntu you’ll have to add the following repository and update your software list cache to install it. Just paste the commands to your terminal and you’ll be good to go.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/docky
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install plank
The settings on Plank are simple and straight forward. While you get the customization you need there aren’t whole different level of customizations like cairo-dock. You can simply select the theme, set the position, alignment and the size of the icons on the dock.
On the behaviour setting you can set the dock to auto hide while you’re using other applications. And set it to show unpinned applications on the dock when you run them. And if you don’t want anyone to mess with your setup, you can lock the icons.
That’s all the settings there is. If you want to pin an application to your dock, you simply run the application and then left click on the icon and set it to remain on the dock. Simply dragging the icons from the unity dashboard doesn’t work like it does on cairo-dock.
But if simplicity is what you seek or if you have a system with limited resource, you can give it a try. I’m sure you’ll love it.
