Mailing the story:
Enchance your launchbar in linux with Cairo-Dock
Cairo-Dock is an animated application launch bar for the desktop, comparable to the dock in Mac OS X or Rocket Dock (for Windows). It is compatible with Compiz-Fusion, Beryl, Compiz and Xcompmgr, but it can also run without a composite manager . Cairo-Dock can run under GNOME, KDE and XFCE.