“One of the best features of Linux is its flexibility, and
nowhere is that more obvious than the desktop. Your Linux desktop
can have the look and feel of any desktop environment you want. One
reason for this flexibility is the ability to add and remove small
applications to better the desktop experience, like desktop docks
Cairo-Dock and Avant Window Navigator.“What’s a dock? A desktop dock is a launch bar where you can add
and remove launchers for applications as well as small applications
that serve various purposes. If you’ve seen or used Mac OS X, then
you get the idea. A dock does a great job of extending the
usefulness, functionality, and even the “cool” factor of the
desktop. The nice thing about AWN and Cairo-Dock is that they’re
much more extensible than the Mac OS X Dock.“Most distributions do not ship with a dock configured by
default, though, so I’m going to introduce you to both docks and
how to get started with them. Both of these fantastic tools are
easily installable on nearly every distribution. For that reason I
will demonstrate both on Fedora 13.”