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Running
If installed properly, Cairo-Dock can be found in your applications menu (under the "System Tools" category) or app launcher. You can also start it by opening a terminal and running the following command:
cairo-dock
The first time it is started, Cairo-Dock will ask which backend to use for drawing: Cairo or OpenGL. On any reasonably recent hardware, it is recommended to select OpenGL. There is an option to remember this choice (otherwise, this question will appear every time the Dock is started). If starting from the command line, you can use the following options to specify the backend:
cairo-dock -c # to use the Cairo backend
cairo-dock -o # to use the OpenGL backend
cairo-dock -A # to ask again which backend to use
There are several ways to automatically start Cairo-Dock when you log in to a desktop session. Which one works best will depend on the desktop environment you're using.
This is the recommended method unless you prefer to run a specific desktop environment / window manager. At the login screen, select one of the "GNOME/Cairo-Dock" sessions to run (there is typically an "options" or similar menu to do so). This will start a custom desktop session that includes the necessary components to provide a nice desktop experience, with Cairo-Dock taking the role of the main panel / dock. This is based on gnome-session and includes many GNOME components. It uses X11 as the display backend and either the Compiz (recommended) or Metacity window managers.
Notes:
- You need several necessary components installed for this to work. Most importantly, the desktop session files (
-Denable-dekstop-manager=Trueoptions if compiling from source, or thecairo-dock-gnome-sessionpackage if using our PPA), GNOME desktop components and Compiz (or Metacity). - This currently works only with X11. If using Wayland, you need to start a session corresponding to your compositor and use one of the below methods to automatically start Cairo-Dock.
- Several aspects of the desktop can be configured from the GNOME Settings app (available in the menu as "System Tools -> Preferences -> Settings" or from the terminal as
gnome-control-center) and the GNOME Tweaks app ("Tweaks" in the menu orgnome-tweaksfrom a terminal) - If using Compiz, additional useful settings are available in the "CompizConfig Settings Manager" (available in "System Tools -> Preferences" or by running
ccsmfrom terminal; might not be installed by default)
Alternatively, if using a custom session, start Cairo-Dock manually, right click on it anywhere, and select "Cairo-Dock -> Launch Cairo-Dock on startup" from the menu. This works using the XDG autostart specification, by placing a launcher under ~/.config/autostart and should work on many desktop environments, but notably not everywhere. To undo this, simply delete ~/.config/autostart/cairo-dock.desktop.
This works only for recent Cairo-Dock versions (3.5.99 or above) and requires the DBus plugin to be enabled. As an alternative to the above, if your distribution uses systemd, you can set up Cairo-Dock to automatically start with any graphical login. Run the following from a terminal:
systemctl --user enable cairo-dock.service
Note that this will make Cairo-Dock start with any graphical session that is managed by systemd. To disable, simply run:
systemctl --user disable cairo-dock.service
You can check if a running instance of Cairo-Dock was started by systemd using the following command:
systemctl --user status cairo-dock.service
It should display Active: active (running) in the output.
If the above does not work, or you don't want to set up Cairo-Dock to run with every graphical session installed on your system, you can instead use autostart settings specific to your window manager or compositor. Some examples are given below:
Go to "Kde System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart > Add a program", then add cairo-dock.
Autostart is configured in ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh. Simply add a line with cairo-dock &.
Use the autostart plugin, either by enabling it in WCM and adding cairo-dock as one item, or by editing ~/.config/wayfire.ini and adding the following line under [autostart]:
cd = cairo-dock
It is recommended to use the "Logout" applet -- it supports the most common desktop environments and setups and offers options for logging out, restarting and shutting down your computer. If one of the options does not work, you can set a custom command for it in the applet's settings (and please open an issue with details of your desktop environment).
Right click anywhere on the dock, select the "Cairo-Dock" submenu (topmost item) and select "Quit". If the "Quit" item is disabled, you can still select it by holding down the Shift key and clicking on it.