PORTLAND, Oregon – After years of being relegated to server racks and the desktops of ultrageeks, Linux is finally making some headway as a viable alternative to Windows on the consumer desktop.

That's the optimistic message delivered by a newly energized contingent of Linux proponents. By employing the same consumer-friendly marketing techniques practiced by Microsoft, and by taking advantage of the rising popularity of web-based applications, Linux vendors are getting ready for what they say will be a wave of consumer interest in the free operating system.

"This is the next great battle, and this is where Linux has never really been before – Linux as a consumer product," says Gerry Carr, marketing manager of Canonical, one of many Linux distribution makers attending the ninth annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention taking place here this week.

Ten years ago, the free and open-source software community fervently hoped that Linux would rise to challenge Microsoft's position as the de facto consumer desktop software platform. Linux could run on a wide range of hardware, it could be configured for specialized tasks and – best of all – it cost nothing.

But the dream of Linux on every desktop hasn't come to pass. Most distributions are plagued by compatibility problems, and a fair amount of geek know-how is usually required to install Linux and get it working properly. As a result, Linux found more traction as a server operating system, undergirding the systems that power websites, databases and other back-office applications, where it holds almost 13 percent of the market.

The perception of Linux as too difficult for ordinary users may change now that Linux vendors are making a concerted effort to make their product easier for non-geeks to install and use.

Ubuntu, a Linux package distributed by the London-based Canonical, has been vastly influential in improving the OS's poor usability track record. The current poster child for the new breed of consumer-friendly Linux, Ubuntu is famously easy to install. Most users can get it running without ever having to type text commands into a shell terminal, a rarity among Linux distributions. Other flavors of Linux, like Mandriva and Debian Etch, have also won accolades for their ease of installation.

This "easy Linux" approach is winning fans. Ubuntu in particular is installed on 6 million to 12 million computers worldwide in more than 220 countries. Canonical also hosts a technical support community site that has more than 13,000 registered users.

Part of this growth can be chalked up to the trend of the LiveCD, a bootable disk image that users can download and burn to a CD to test the software. Most of the popular Linux makers release software on LiveCDs, and many also ship physical CDs to curious users anywhere in the world for free or for a nominal fee.

But what if a user doesn't know what to do with a downloadable disk image? In an effort to better serve the nontechnical crowd, Canonical is making the Ubuntu trial experience even more seamless. The company is developing a new application aimed at Windows users that, when launched, opens an instance of the Ubuntu desktop on top of the Windows desktop. Users will be able to run it, try it out and, if they don't like it, throw it away. But if they do like it, they'll be able to download the full OS.

"We want people to see it, feel it, actually understand it," says Canonical's Carr of the as-yet-unnamed app, which he says will be released soon.

While Canonical and others may be able to get Linux into users' hands via the web, getting it onto retail shelves is proving to be a bigger challenge. Free operating system vendors don't have Microsoft's deep, long-lasting relationship with PC manufacturers. Since Windows is available as a default installation on just about every consumer PC on the market, many new computer buyers still don't know what Linux is, let alone feel the need to download it, learn it and install it.

To change this, Linux makers have taken a cue from Microsoft and established relationships with top-tier hardware manufacturers in an effort to get the OS installed on consumer-level desktops and laptops.

In May, Dell launched a line of laptops and desktops with Ubuntu preinstalled. The release was a hit among consumers, and the company says more are on the way. Dell has also previously offered Japan-based Turbolinux as a preinstalled option to customers in Asia.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth has said more big-name hardware partnerships are in the works, though he remains tight-lipped about which manufacturers he's talking to.

"More companies shipping machines with Linux preinstalled would be hugely successful in accelerating (Linux's) growth," says Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, an organization that supports Linux development through financial fellowships and public relations efforts.

A big reason for that success is the guarantee a factory-built Linux machine can give to customers: a computer that performs the way it's supposed to.

"People don't want to worry about that 'what if it doesn't work' scenario," Carr says. "They don't want to have to pick up the phone to figure out how to get their wireless card to work."

Another source of resistance: Potential switchers may worry about losing access to the core applications they use every day – office productivity programs in particular. To that end, the recent rise in popularity of web-based applications has worked in Linux's favor.

Web-based apps like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Zoho, Gmail and Flickr fulfill core needs of most users, and since they run in the browser, they look and behave the same on every platform. Users already hooked on web apps won't need to learn anything new.

"Web apps are really where it's happening," says the Linux Foundation's Zemlin. "They give you pure functionality, whether it's the banking application that you love, or the web app that keeps track of all of your photos. And it doesn't matter which operating system you use."

Zemlin also sees web-based applications as more than just a path to greater adoption of Linux. Because of the hackability of free software, he explains, those who package Linux are in a unique position to improve their users' experience out of the box. For example, there's a free set of scripts for Firefox called Greasemonkey that improves the performance of Google's web apps. By building those scripts into a default installation, Linux distributions can add a layer of polish to the platform's basic level of usability.

These strategies are making Linux and free software more visible, but the movement still has obstacles to overcome.

Linux famously has problems with hardware support. Wireless networking cards and graphics cards can be a hassle to get working, even in the "easy" distributions. There are software issues as well, from support for MP3s and popular fonts, which can be solved with a little bit of trial and error, to the lack of Linux support in popular productivity applications like Adobe Photoshop. And then there's the big one: the conspicuous absence of the video game industry's most popular titles.

Such shortcomings have made many users reluctant to use Linux, even among those who would love to switch if given the opportunity. And without a large pre-existing user base, manufacturers are reluctant to put their weight behind the operating system.

"It's a Catch-22," says Jon "maddog" Hall, long-time free software programmer and executive director of Linux International, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of the OS. You can't give users everything they want in a desktop operating system unless you have the backing of the manufacturers, he explains. But to get manufacturers' buy-in, you need a large enough user base to make the manufacturers' investments worthwhile.

"Volume," he says. "It's not the big thing holding Linux back, it's the only thing."

But according to Zemlin, the tide is turning. Manufacturers like Dell are starting to take notice as consumers demand more options – and a vocal Linux community continues to lobby for support. He says more device drivers for popular hardware are arriving every day, and he predicts Adobe will announce Linux support for Photoshop within the next year or two.

"The good news is that there appears to be some volume happening in the places that actually matter," Zemlin says.