Would Cairo Dock not be the better alternative to Unity? It seems well developed, can adopt many different lay-outs and looks.
Michael
Cairo Dock instead of Unity
Archived thread 1871448 from Ubuntu +1 (Precise Pangolin)(Closed). Markdown source: Ubuntu_+1_(Precise_Pangolin)(Closed)/thread_1871448_Cairo_Dock_instead_of_Unity.md
Yumi said: Would Cairo Dock would not be the better alternative to Unity? It seems well developed, can adopt many different lay-outs and looks.
Michael
Hi, Yumi.
Cairo dock is wonderful, but it does not have anything to do, with unity.
You can add cairo dock, if you wish.
Yumi said: Would Cairo Dock not be the better alternative to Unity? It seems well developed, can adopt many different lay-outs and looks.
Michael
I think instead of using Unity, we should instead be using the X Window System.
...Unity is more than just a dock, so your post doesn't quite make all the sense it should.
3rdalbum, of course Unity is a desktop shell that runs over Gnome 3 that in turn runs over the X Window System.
Maybe you refer to the XFCE desktop shell, that could be an alternative to Unity if you don't like it.
I have Cairo-Dock running intergrated with Unity 3d and Compiz!! They all work great together. I had some probs with the Cairo ppa experimental but had reverted back to the current and removed the ppa. Still works great with great graphics (eye candy) and a stable system on minimal resources -768MBDDR, Nvidia 512, 2.66GHz P4 .
@ventrical, can you post a screenshot of your desktop? I wonder how an extra dock integrates with the Unity launcher/dock...
Hi, wgarcia.
I've installed a basic setup, to show you.
But it seems like a duplication to have both the Unity launcher and an extra dock at the bottom, isn't it?
One can disable the Ubuntu Unity Plugin in CCSM. As long as other plugins are active, to allow for application switching, etc, and there's an alternative dock to launch apps.
wgarcia said: @ventrical, can you post a screenshot of your desktop? I wonder how an extra dock integrates with the Unity launcher/dock...
I took a desktop recording lastnight and got the GSOD Green Screen of Death but will use my vid/cam and send the link soon.
EDIT* Ladyfriend has USB cable for Blackberry !! Sheesh ....
wgarcia said: But it seems like a duplication to have both the Unity launcher and an extra dock at the bottom, isn't it?
True, but you can uninstall unity* but not unity-2d* as I ended up with a non-working X. I did install gnome-session-fallback though for backup and/or gnome-shell.
And I'm only using nouveau but still getting pretty good display.
Heres my vid of Cairo Docky thing.
In the past month I've worked on all variations of Ubuntu including the desktop and Studio variants. I'm a newbie compared to some of you! However, in the past 20 years, I have worked on several infrastructure projects and software/operating system implementations. The one thing that bothers me the most, that as a user/implementation specialist, we are not given the choice of using which launchpad system that works best for our environment. Don't get me wrong, I think Unity has value but so do some of the other launchpad systems such as Cairo dock and XFCE. My personal choices are Cairo and XFCE and I wish Ubuntu would give you a choice of installing the launchpad system at the time of implementation that works the best for your environment. The one ting I need to remind everyone about is that since this is a Microsoft centric world most users are lost when it come to multiple work spaces with multiple windows/panes thanks to the evil overlord Microsoft. Further more, most users cannot handle a launchpad system that does not resembles Microsoft's either. Thanks for your time.
@pwieczkowski, your suggestions are valid, but it won't happen, as it goes against what Ubuntu is trying to do with the install process. They are trying to make the install process as simple as possible with a minimal need for interaction by the user. The other need is to keep the iso size small enough to fit on a single CD, so there isn't a lot of room for adding extra packages.
One thing in your post did lead to some confusion is your usage of launchpad. bugs.launchpad.net is the bug tracking system,, commonly referred to as launchpad, so I had to stop and realize you weren't talking about the bug tracking system. :)
Just found and installed cairo and logged out and back in to the cairo desktop...i am an ordinary computer user not a computer whizz ( i would love to be able to be a whizz but sadly i aint) why oh why didn't canoniacal adopt cairo instead of the unity desktop...it is super and uses our much loved drop down menus...so simple to use...the unity desktop is too involved ...although with a bit of polish i think it could be very good actually, for example if the installed application screens icons were much smaller so you don't have to scroll and search so much.
I like both the Unity desktop as well as Cairo. Unity is beggining to grow on me. I am learning it and getting adapted to it's functionalities. It allows me to have options and makes more sense than pull up , top down menus. Unity provides a truer multi-dimesionality to my desktop experience as oppossed to the traditional flat-screen top down , bottom up DT. I'm not suggesting that Unity is intuitive, but it can be developed in that direction (as was Maveric).
I must admit that I am grateful to be able to have these forums to run the pre-alpha release on the next phase and development of Ubuntu distro Precise. I doesn't get better than this. As a ComSci student several decades ago we never had these opportunities. We never had GUIs, just top-down -bottom up! So perhaps I just may seem to be more appreciative because of my background.
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Yes, and Cairo is yet another experience that some might say can be equaled to Unity. Time will tell. In the meantime i have them working in synchronicity - it's just awesome.! Ubuntu is a real blessing. It keeps getting better and better. Here , these are the proving grounds. Foresight tells me (as well as hindsight) that Precise LTS will level the playing feild, with or without Unity.
ventrical said: I like both the Unity desktop as well as Cairo. Unity is beggining to grow on me. I am learning it and getting adapted to it's functionalities. It allows me to have options and makes more sense than pull up , top down menus. Unity provides a truer multi-dimesionality to my desktop experience as oppossed to the traditional flat-screen top down , bottom up DT. I'm not suggesting that Unity is intuitive, but it can be developed in that direction (as was Maveric).
I must admit that I am grateful to be able to have these forums to run the pre-alpha release on the next phase and development of Ubuntu distro Precise. I doesn't get better than this. As a ComSci student several decades ago we never had these opportunities. We never had GUIs, just top-down -bottom up! So perhaps I just may seem to be more appreciative because of my background.
-
Yes, and Cairo is yet another experience that some might say can be equaled to Unity. Time will tell. In the meantime i have them working in synchronicity - it's just awesome.! Ubuntu is a real blessing. It keeps getting better and better. Here , these are the proving grounds. Foresight tells me (as well as hindsight) that Precise LTS will level the playing feild, with or without Unity.
Hi ventrical, I've seen your video, and I see your sidebar disappears after a while although you're using Cairo-Dock.
Mine used to do like this before installing it, but now that I'm using Cairo-dock, the side bar is persistently visible (and that's bothering me...).
Did you modify something to make it work like this, or what?
Cheers
*edit: Now it works... Don't know what I did, but it's fine ;)
I have always been a fan of the AWN dock. I use it on my 11.04 Ubuntu installation. In virtual box I run several 12.04 systems, lubunty, ubuntu, and xubuntu. All use the Cairo dock. With ubuntu I use the gnome 3 shell instead of Unity. Gnome works much better with a dock than Unity.
Hmmm... I use Cairo with my 10.04 install, along with Macbuntu to make it look like an iMac. However, since testing 12.04 Unity, I've been won by the current Unity interface.
I just tweaked it to make it more personal for me.
Radiance gives me the iMac-like panel, the launcher is great now that you can adjust the icon size, and add further customisation using Ubuntu Tweak and MyUnity. I use Orta theme for the window titles.
I guess I prefer the 'less is more' when it comes to what's on my desktop. Don't get me wrong, I love Cairo dock more than any of the other docks on offer, but when it comes to Unity, I think the guys at Canonical have finally got it sorted. ;-)
Unity in 12.04 is awesome!! I have been using Xubuntu and AWN dock for the last six months. I switched to 12.04 and I think Unity is much better. It has grown on me in a very good way. I shrunk down the launcher to the smallest size and turned off auto-hide. So now the launcher is stationary. I think is is great!! I know everyone was complaining when Shuttleworth said that he was going to eliminate auto-hide, I think it is better this way. I am very excited about Ubuntu 12.04.
Here is my current screenshot with Ubuntu 12.04 and the other is Xubuntu 11.10 with AWN.
Yumi said: Would Cairo Dock not be the better alternative to Unity? It seems well developed, can adopt many different lay-outs and looks.
Michael
Probably because Canonical doesn't own Cairo. They can't really innovate or break it if they want to it since it's not theirs to break, especially since the launcher is an integral part of Unity.
redcylon said: Probably because Canonical doesn't own Cairo. They can't really innovate or break it if they want to it since it's not theirs to break, especially since the launcher is an integral part of Unity.
With open source software it doesn't matter who owns the software, it all depends on how it is licensed. Most open source software uses some form of the GPL.
I tried out Cairo dock and the more I use it the better it gets. So far it is the best choice I have seen so far, over unity and gnome 3.