Plank Reloaded

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A simple and elegant dock for X11 desktop environments.

View the Project on GitHub zquestz/plank-reloaded

What Is Plank Reloaded?

Plank Reloaded is a fork of the original Plank project, providing a simple dock for X11 desktop environments. We actively support Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, and KDE.

Like its predecessor, Plank Reloaded aims to be the simplest dock on the planet, providing just what a dock needs and absolutely nothing more. It also remains a library which can be extended to create other dock programs with more advanced features.

Plank Reloaded on Linux Mint

Themes

Plank Reloaded ships with six built-in themes and supports GTK themes. You can switch themes in Preferences → Appearance → Theme. See the full theme gallery on GitHub.

Installation

Arch Linux 
yay -S plank-reloaded-git
Linux Mint / Ubuntu (Noble Numbat)

Using the PPA (Recommended):

# Add the repository
curl -fsSL https://zquestz.github.io/ppa/ubuntu/KEY.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/zquestz-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/zquestz-archive-keyring.gpg] https://zquestz.github.io/ppa/ubuntu ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zquestz.list
sudo apt update

# Install Plank Reloaded
sudo apt install plank-reloaded

Manual Installation:

Download the plank-reloaded.deb package from the Releases page or build from source:

sudo apt-get remove plank libplank-common libplank1
sudo apt-get install git meson gettext valac libgnome-menu-3.0 libgnome-menu-3-dev libxml2-utils gtk+-3.0 gee-0.8 libbamf3-dev libwnck-3.0 libwnck-3-dev bamfdaemon
git clone https://github.com/zquestz/plank-reloaded.git
cd plank-reloaded
meson setup --prefix=/usr build
meson compile -C build
sudo meson install -C build
LMDE / Debian (Bookworm)

Using the PPA (Recommended):

# Add the repository
curl -fsSL https://zquestz.github.io/ppa/debian/KEY.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/zquestz-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/zquestz-archive-keyring.gpg] https://zquestz.github.io/ppa/debian ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zquestz.list
sudo apt update

# Install Plank Reloaded
sudo apt install plank-reloaded

Manual Installation:

Download the plank-reloaded-debian.deb package from the Releases page or build from source:

sudo apt-get remove plank libplank-common libplank1
sudo apt-get install git meson gettext valac libgnome-menu-3.0 libgnome-menu-3-dev libxml2-utils gtk+-3.0 gee-0.8 libbamf3-dev libwnck-3.0 libwnck-3-dev bamfdaemon
git clone https://github.com/zquestz/plank-reloaded.git
cd plank-reloaded
meson setup --prefix=/usr build
meson compile -C build
sudo meson install -C build
Fedora

Using RPM Packages (Recommended for X11 users):

Download the latest RPM packages from the Releases page.

sudo dnf install ./plank-reloaded-*.rpm

Build from Source:

# Set environment variables for X11
GDK_BACKEND=x11
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11

sudo dnf install git meson valac clang cmake libgnome-devel libxml2-devel gnome-menus-devel libgee libgee-devel libdbusmenu-gtk3-devel libdbusmenu-gtk3 libwnck3 libwnck3-devel bamf bamf-devel bamf-daemon
git clone https://github.com/zquestz/plank-reloaded.git
cd plank-reloaded
meson setup --prefix=/usr build
meson compile -C build
sudo meson install -C build
openSUSE

There is a community supported openSUSE package available at:

https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:asdhio/plank

FreeBSD

Using pkg (Binary Package):

pkg install x11/plank

Using the Ports Collection:

cd /usr/ports/x11/plank
make install clean

For more information about the port, visit FreshPorts.

Nix

There is a Nix flake available. The quickest way to try it:

nix run github:zquestz/plank-reloaded

To build locally:

nix build github:zquestz/plank-reloaded

For system-wide installation with flakes, see the full instructions in the README.

FAQ

Can I use Plank Reloaded on Wayland?

No, Plank Reloaded is designed for X11 desktop environments only. Wayland is not supported at this time.

How do I access Plank Reloaded preferences?

Hold Ctrl while right-clicking on any area of the dock to open the Preferences menu.

Can I run Plank Reloaded alongside the original Plank?

No, you should completely uninstall the original Plank before installing Plank Reloaded to avoid conflicts. See the installation instructions for details.

How do I auto-start Plank Reloaded when I log in?

Add Plank Reloaded to your desktop environment’s startup applications. The command to use is simply plank.

Does Plank Reloaded work with multiple monitors?

Yes, Plank Reloaded works with multiple monitors. To have a dock on each monitor, you need to launch multiple instances with different names:

plank          # First dock
plank -n dock2 # Second dock

Each instance can be configured independently. You can move docks to your active monitor by enabling “On Active Display” in the preferences or by running killall -USR1 plank.

Why can't I see certain applications in the dock?

Check if “Restrict to Workspace” is enabled in preferences. When enabled, applications will only show up on the workspace they’re active on.

Running indicators not showing after login?

This is typically caused by bamfdaemon not starting properly with systemd.

Solution 1: Manually add bamfdaemon to your startup applications. Common paths include:

  • /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/bamf/bamfdaemon
  • /usr/lib/bamf/bamfdaemon

Solution 2: Fix the bamf systemd service with a drop-in override:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/bamfdaemon.service.d/
echo -e "[Service]\nRestart=no" > ~/.config/systemd/user/bamfdaemon.service.d/override.conf
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Third Party Docklets

Plank Reloaded supports custom docklets! See the development guide for details.

Get Involved