A dock is an application manager that sits on one side of the screen. The Unity Launcher is called the Dock in the default GNOME desktop environment in Ubuntu 17.10 and later.

A dock is an application manager that sits on one side of the screen. The Unity Launcher is called the Dock in the default GNOME desktop environment in Ubuntu 17.10 and later. Other well-known docks include Docky/Plank, Cairo Dock, and AWN.