Installation - Cairo-Dock/cairo-dock-core GitHub Wiki

The stable version of Cairo-Dock is available as a package in many popular Linux distributions. The easiest way to install it is probably using your package manager. E.g. on Debian / Ubuntu, you can install it by running from a terminal:

sudo apt install cairo-dock

On Fedora, you can run:

sudo yum install cairo-dock

The latest stable version is 3.6.0, released on September 30, 2025, so it might take some time for distribution packages to be updated. For recent Ubuntu versions (22.04, 24.04, 25.04 and 25.10), the latest stable version is also available in our PPA: https://launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

The latest development version is available by compiling from source, or among the unstable / experimental packages in some distributions (e.g. Fedora or Arch AUR). For Ubuntu, it is also available in our PPA: https://launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team/+archive/weekly

The development version could have new bugs, but also includes additional bugfixes, so it can be worth trying if you experience problems with the stable version.

Requirements

Cairo-Dock currently runs on Linux under a variety of desktop environments based on X11 and Wayland. Other UNIX-like systems should also be supported as long as they run a desktop based on X11 or one of the supported Wayland compositors (e.g. BSD); however, these are untested. Testing and patches to support non-Linux systems are very welcome though :)

On X11, Cairo-Dock requires a composite manager, which is nowadays incorporated in most window managers. For certain lightweight WMs, running a standalone compositor is recommended, such as xcompmgr or picom.

Running Cairo-Dock on Wayland is currently only supported in the latest version (>= 3.6.0) and only on environments / compositors that support the wlr-layer-shell protocol (see also here and here for possible candidates).

Cairo-Dock can use OpenGL to improve performance and some effects. Typically any GPU (including integrated ones) should work that has decent Linux drivers, including most Intel, AMD and NVIDIA ones.