How to install Plank on Ubuntu 16.04

How to install Plank on Ubuntu 16.04

Plank is the default dock app on Elementary OS used for launching applications. It is easy to edit and rearrange the applications present on it without editing its configuration file. It can be easily installed on any Ubuntu based systems. This article explains the installation of Plank on Ubuntu 16.04.

Installation procedure

Before beginning the installation procedure, execute the following command to add the repo in the target system.

root@linuxhelp1:~# add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/docky
 Docky/Plank testing packages
 More info: https://launchpad.net/~ricotz/+archive/ubuntu/docky
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmpxwschl76/secring.gpg'  created
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmpxwschl76/pubring.gpg'  created
gpg: requesting key 9E5DB0C8 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: /tmp/tmpxwschl76/trustdb.gpg: trustdb create
gpg: key 9E5DB0C8: public key " Launchpad PPA for Rico"  imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)
OK

The required repositories are added in the target system. Update the apt sources.list by running the apt-get update command.

root@linuxhelp1:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease [102 kB]
Hit:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease                   
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ricotz/docky/ubuntu xenial InRelease          
Get:4 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [102 kB]        
Get:5 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease [102 kB]
Fetched 306 kB in 2s (110 kB/s)   
Reading package lists... Done

The target system is updated with the required repositories. Next install the plank package by executing the following command.

root@linuxhelp1:~# apt-get install plank
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  libplank-common libplank1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libplank-common libplank1 plank
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 500 not upgraded.
Need to get 383 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,587 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
.
.
Setting up plank (0.11.3+bzr1597-0ubuntu1~16.04~ricotz1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu3) ...

The Plank application is successfully installed in the target system. To open the application, type the package name in the Ubuntu dashboard and click on the icon to run the application.

Wasn' t that an easy installation procedure? Plank contains a library which can be extended to create other dock programs with more advanced features.