With Ubuntu, the devotees believe, things might finally be different.

“I think Ubuntu has captured people’s imaginations around the Linux desktop,” said Chris DiBona, the program manager for open-source software at Google. “If there is a hope for the Linux desktop, it would be them.”

Close to half of Google’s 20,000 employees use a slightly modified version of Ubuntu, playfully called Goobuntu.

PEOPLE encountering Ubuntu for the first time will find it very similar to Windows. The operating system has a slick graphical interface, familiar menus and all the common desktop software: a Web browser, an e-mail program, instant-messaging software and a free suite of programs for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

While relatively easy to use for the technologically savvy, Ubuntu — and all other versions of Linux — can challenge the average user. Linux cannot run many applications created for Windows, including some of the most popular games and tax software, for example. And updates to Linux can send ripples of problems through the system, causing something as basic as a computer’s display or sound system to malfunction.

Canonical has tried to smooth out many of the issues that have prevented Linux from reaching the mainstream. This attention to detail with a desktop version of Linux contrasts with the focus of the largest sellers of the operating system, Red Hat and Novell. While these companies make desktop versions, they have spent most of their time chasing the big money in data centers. As a result, Ubuntu emerged as a sort of favored nation for those idealistic software developers who viewed themselves as part of a countercultural movement.

“It is the same thing companies like Apple and Google have done well, which is build not just a community but a passionate community,” said Ian Murdock, who created an earlier version of Linux called Debian, on which Ubuntu is based.

Mainstream technology companies have taken notice of the enthusiasm around Ubuntu. Dell started to sell PCs and desktops with the software in 2007, and I.B.M. more recently began making Ubuntu the basis of a software package that competes against Windows.