EON

San Francisco – The open source operating system Linux took another step into the computer mainstream Monday.

Lenovo, one of the world’s largest computer makers, said it was teaming up with software company Novell to offer ThinkPad laptops with Linux pre-installed on the machines.

The announcement follows a similar move by Dell several weeks ago and came at the start of LinuxWorld, an annual conference held in San Francisco.

The operating system, created by a loosely organized team of developers around the world, is mostly used to power web servers but is becoming increasingly popular for desktops. Linux is now estimated to run about 6 per cent of the world’s personal computers, about the same number as Apple.

The companies will offer the Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell to commercial and private customers on Lenovo notebooks, including those in the popular ThinkPad T Series, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2007.

“We have seen more customers utilizing and requesting open source notebook solutions in education, government and the enterprise, and today’s announcement expands upon our efforts by offering customers more Linux options,” said Sam Dusi, a Lenovo executive.