Slingshot For Linux

Slingshot is an open source, low on resources, attractive and free graphical software implemented in Vala and designed to act as an application launcher specifically engineered for the elementary OS Linux operating system and its Patheon desktop environment.

The software looks exactly like any other application launcher (also known as dock), such as Docky or AWN (Avant Window Navigator). You can also compare it with the Mac OS X dock if you want, but it’s a little bit different in functionality.

While in theory Slingshot can be installed on any distribution of GNU/Linux, it is quite hard to compile it on Linux kernel-based operating systems where its runtime dependencies cannot be met. Slingshot has a lot of requirements and not all of them are available on all distributions.

One of these requirements is libunity, which is part of the Unity graphical interface of the Ubuntu Linux operating system. This means that you will be able to install Slingshot on Ubuntu-based distributions, besides elementary OS.

After installation, Slingshot can be opened from the main menu of your desktop environment. It can be configured to automatically start when the desktop environment starts. By default, it is located on the bottom edge of the screen, but you can place it anywhere you want.

The software is usable with other open source desktop environments as well, it is supposed to be simple and easy on the eyes, and the best of all is that it just works. Slingshot can be used on major Linux operating systems via the distribution's default software repositories.

A clone of the Slingshot application launcher exists as a GNOME Shell extension for the GNOME 3 desktop environment. The software has been successfully tested with 32-bit and 64-bit computer platforms.