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First Steps

A new feature with Cairo-Dock 2 : OpenGL support

With Cairo-Dock 2.0 version, you can choose between using Cairo-Dock with or without OpenGL.
With OpenGL, the use of your video card is maximized and the dock with many effects and plug-ins is fluid all the time even with a CPU under heavy load!
Unfortunately all ATI and many Intel cards don't support the OpenGL v2 as well as Nvidia cards (it seems to be resolved for Intel cards on Ubuntu Karmic / Fedora 12). For the owner of ATI or Intel video card, for which DRI2 support is under development, as well as for the legacy video card which do no support OpenGL v2, the Cairo back-end is still available. This allow everybody to be able to enjoy most of the dock's improvements and the new applets. But, this drivers are improving every day and we hope that you can use Cairo-Dock with OpenGL with every graphics cards!
Note that with the "same" config of another dock and Cairo-Dock without OpenGL, Cairo-Dock use less CPU than this other dock.


Running cairo-dock
There are several ways to run cairo-dock. To do a standard run, issue

$ cairo-dock &


The first time your run cairo-dock, a startup message will prompt you to run it using OpenGL backend or Cario backend. Cairo-dock remembers your choice for later sessions. You can also specify which backend to use when running cairo-dock - specifying a backend will also suppress the startup message.

Run with OpenGL backend

$ cairo-dock -o

Run with Cario backend

$ cairo-dock -c

All ATI card owners must use this option when runnning cario-dock.

Running cairo-dock in GNOME
A launcher is created in System Tools. For example with Gnome :
  • Go to Applications / System Tools / Cairo-Dock or GlxDock (Cairo-Dock with OpenGL)
  • Or Press Alt + F2 and type cairo-dock in the box that opened then validate.


Running cairo-dock at startup
Run the dock with or without the OpenGL backend.
Right-click the dock / Cairo-Dock / Launch Cairo-Dock on startup.
Note that this will create the following file which remembers your settings for next startups:

~/.config/autostart/cairo-dock-cairo.desktop


But you can also use some tools of your desktop environment :

Gnome
Menu : "System" / "Preferences" / "Sessions" or "Startup application" / "Add"
In the name field, type in Cairo-Dock and in the command field, add the above command that matches your configuration

KDE
  • "Kde Control center" / "Kde components" / "Add"
  • Or "Configure your desktop" / "Advanced" tab / "Autostart" / "Add a program" ; In the browser, find "Tools" / "System tools" "GLX-Dock (Cairo dock with OpenGl)".
Do not enable the option that save the current running programs, otherwise, two docks will be executed.

XFCE
Menu : "Settings" / "Session and startup" / "Application autostart" tab / "Add"

Openbox
Append the following in your ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh
cairo-dock &
(you can force the OpenGL backend by adding -o (or -c to not use it).

Troubleshooting
Beryl
With Beryl, Cairo-Dock is on only one cube face
Cairo-dock can sometimes have a curious behaviour, although a next execution would perfectly work.
It is then recommended to run Cairo-dock with a delay:
sh -c "sleep 15 && cairo-dock -o"

Adapt this code to needs and your computer (this example will wait for 15, and run with OpenGL backend).

Two docks at startup?
This problem is often a result of saving sessions when logging off and running these sessions on login. You can turn off saving of sessions.

Gnome:
  • In the menu "System" / "Preferences" / "Sessions" or "Startup applications" , "Options" tab, do unable "Remember running applications..."
KDE:
  • Go to "Configure your desktop" / "Advanced" tab / "Session manager" and in the section "At login" enable "Start with an empty session"
XFCE:
  • Go to your Session Manager in order to disable this option.
  • If you still have two docks at startup and this option is disabled, simply remove the cache:
    rm ~/.cache/sessions/x*
Openbox:
  • Assuming you are using ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh to start the dock, delete this file:
    $ rm ~/.config/autostart/cairo-dock-cairo.desktop

Customization
If you have any problems (normally ) you can see how to customize easily your favorite dock in the next section : Customization.

Recurrent problems
A black background? Problem with (S)Mplayer or VirtualBox?
See this section : Recurrent problems

Cairo-Dock works on Linux
Several research on the web shows that some people have been able to use the dock on a few Linux distributions:
  • Ubuntu/Debian (Cairo-Dock is developed on that distribution)
  • Fedora
  • ArchLinux
  • Mandriva
  • Gentoo
  • Frugalware
  • OpenSuSe

As well as a few windows manager:
  • Gnome (of course with Gnome-integration plug-in)
  • Xfce (of course with xfce-integration plug-in)
  • KDE


So if you have any problems (except these recurrent problems) please report your bug on our forum.
Also if you have some ideas, propositions, new applets, etc. ! Don't be shy !


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Dock based on CSS Dock Menu (Ndesign) with jQuery. Icons by zgegball
Cairo-Dock is a free software under GNU-GPL3 licence. First stable version created by Fabounet.
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