The Compaq nx5000 was unveiled at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here during a keynote speech by HP's vice president of Linux, Martin Fink.

"This is the year that Linux overtakes the Mac on the desktop, and maybe my laptop will help accelerate that," Fink said.

Industry research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass., said it believes that this has already happened. "Linux captured the No. 2 spot as desktop operating system in 2003," said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky in a recent interview.

Though Linux has proved popular as a server operating system, it has had less success on the desktop. In late 2000, IBM began offering Linux preinstalled on its A20 and T20 notebooks, but it eventually withdrew the Linux offerings.

By 2007, IDC estimates that Linux will have 6% of the desktop market in terms of units, Kusnetzky said.

Starting at $1,140, the nx5000 ships with either Intel Corp.'s Celeron or Pentium processors, a 15-in. screen, and 30GB to 60GB of storage. The Linux version ships with Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux 9.1 and the OpenOffice productivity suite. The product can also be purchased with Windows XP, according to HP's Web site.