A faulty (maybe poorly-written) docklet for CairoDock screwed up my first LinuxMint install, so I'm off that. I like Docky, and since it has hundreds of widgets (some of which I assume are well-road-tested pre-release), it seems to be the way to go for me (but does it have a future? I keep asking myself).

Nine years ago I was on a PowerMac G4 running OS X 10.2 Jaguar. I miss the OS X dock, but as I went on to Windows XP SP3 and then to Win 7 and Ubuntu Gnome (11.04--the last fully-Classic version), I've gotten very used to panels.

I'd like to try a dock/dock-like utility besides the two I mentioned, and am soliciting suggestions from experienced users of "thingy X or Y."

Carver

I'm a kde user, and I like Now Dock

Tint2 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tint2

Also a KDE user, and I've been using the Icon-Only Task Manager plasmoid. It lets you "pin" launchers to a panel, and launch an instance of each application. New apps launched appear as new, temporary icons (unless you pin them).

KDE panels themselves aren't "great" at staying centered on the screen, so I use the icon task manager as part of a larger panel, but otherwise it's exactly what I need in a dock.

If it's not available, look for plasma-extras or similar.