HP announced yesterday that it is now shipping its first notebook, the Compaq nx5000, to come with the Linux operating system preinstalled. “This is the year that Linux overtakes the Mac on the desktop, and maybe my laptop will help accelerate that,” Martin Fink, HP’s vice president of Linux, said at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo during a keynote speech. However, industry research firm IDC 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. By 2007, IDC estimates that Linux will have 6 percent of the desktop market in terms of units.