That fancy row of icons at the bottom of the Mac OS X desktop is pretty good, you have to admit. Hence the multitude of copy-cats that followed on other OS’s, none of which really matching the quality of the OS X dock. However, with advances in 3D desktop support, Avant Window Navigator (AWN) has stepped up, and is beginning to mark its territory, all over the OS X dock.

Glx-Dock/Cairo-Dock is an interactive dock (like the one you know from a Mac) that provides easy access to some of the files, folders, and applications on your computer, and more. You can use it with OpenGL (to use your graphics card) or without, and it is compatible with Compiz, but it can also run without a composite manager. It works under Unity, GNOME, KDE, and Xfce.

"System Tray" icons were a great idea in Windows 95, but over the years the concept has been abused. It's not uncommon to get a new Windows PC with a dozen system tray icons, usually serving no purpose other than to advertise the existance of the application to which the icon belongs.

When you first think of Apple, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the dock. If you are not an avid Apple user or just don't know what a dock is, it's the nifty looking application launcher at the bottom of every apple computer. It launches programs and keeps track of opened an minimized ones. The question is are there any great docks to use on the Linux operating system?

There seems to be two different types of users: those who love eye candy, and those detest it. This article is for those who love to see the glitter, glamour, and special effects and want to pimp their Gnome desktop.

Many people using GNOME (either in Ubuntu or elsewhere) feel that they are missing icons to their beloved 'Computer', home folder, network servers and trash can on their desktop, but did you now they are actually included into GNOME and that you just have to enable them?

One of the nice things about using a Mac is the dock, the area on the bottom of the screen that contains the Finder (file and directory lister) and other applications you use. By default, Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Gnome-based user interfaces do not come with a dock, but it is easy to add.

Docky is one of the most famous animated application launch bars for your Ubuntu desktop,comparable to the dock in Mac OS X or Rocket Dock (for Windows). Some of "Docky's" amazing features include themes, plugins, 4 different hiding modes, advanced indicators, zeitgeist integration, and window management and much more.

I prefer a clean desktop with no icons cluttering it up, but by default most Gnome based distros adds icons to the desktop for every single removable drive that you attach to your system.