"Linux is ready now for widespread use as a desktop operating system," says Rick Lehrbaum, founder of the newly launched DesktopLinux.com.

To prove his point, Lehrbaum and his band of merry Linux-lovers at Palo Alto, Calif.-based DeviceForge Monday launched the site devoted to getting the open source operating system out of server rooms and onto more desktops.

Lehrbaum, founder of the popular LinuxDevices.com portal, recently formed DeviceForge. The company acquired LinuxDevices.com from CNET, whose subsidiary ZDNet had purchased the site from Lehrbaum in May, 2000.

The new site features news, opinions, HOWTOs, FAQs, product previews/reviews, product listings, a discussion forum, and links to other web resources, all focused on using - or learning to use - Linux as a desktop operating system.

Up until recently, the Linux operating system conceived mostly by Linus Torvalds, has spent most of its life on servers and other backend machines. Users love the stability of the operating system but the migration to consumer desktops has been lethargic at best.

"In the seven years we have run Linux on our desktops it has evolved from a geek-only environment to something a non-techie could be comfortable using," says Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal. "It's time for a place on the web to help that non-techie get up and running with Linux and DesktopLinux.com looks like it will be that place."

Lehrbaum whole-heartedly agrees.

"Two years ago, when I started LinuxDevices.com, 'Embedded Linux' was unheard of. Now, it's one of the fastest growing OSes in the embedded space," says Lehrbaum. "I believe we're on the verge of a similar explosion in the use of 'Desktop Linux', and I expect DesktopLinux.com to be as much a contributor to that growth as LinuxDevices.com has been to the extraordinary success of Embedded Linux."

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Lehrbaum says a discussion forum with areas devoted to Linux distributions, windowing environments, application software, and system utilities is sure to be a popular area of the new site.