Unfortunately, changing the bottom bar properties to place it to the left or right makes the text indicating running apps show up as ... On the Mac, I make the bottom task bar very small and place it on th left side of the screen, near the bottom - really good for saving screen real estate.

On Ubuntu, making the bottom bar show up on the right side, increase to width by about 20% so ... shows as an app icon, and turn off "expand" provides a similar experience to OS X, but not quite as nice.