side panels

I normally use top or bottom panels for my Linux desktops, but to make better use of a couple of my notebooks' 1366x768 monitor size, I've been experimenting with some side panel setups.

KDE side panel in openSUSE:

KDE side panel in Sabayon:

xfce4-panel in Bridge Linux (set to auto-hide):

xfce4-panel in Debian Wheezy (set to auto-hide):

And, one more... using the tint2 panel in Openbox in CrunchBang Linux:

Panels along the left side turned out to be surprisingly easy for me to get used to, perhaps because I like using the Unity launcher in Ubuntu. The thought here is that side panels are probably better than top or bottom panels for wide-screen monitors. Not everyone would agree, I guess.