Today HP has announced they will ship Linux on their HP Compaq DC5850. If you’re like me, your first reaction as soon as you saw it was a small business PC was “yawn.” One desktop and not even a consumer one? Big deal, right?

Well, it might not be. It seems that HP is toying with Linux more and more. FIrst on their Mini(Note) and now on this desktop.The big question is, will HP start selling more computers with Linux?

It is not implausible that HP would begin to sell Linux on more of their computers at all. After all, Dell is already doing it. Everything kind of makes sense. First HP offers SLED and then (soon) Ubuntu on their Mini(Note) consumer netbook. Now, they are trying SLED again, this time on a business desktop. All of this would fit with trying to figure out if offering Linux on a larger array of computers would make sense. Still , nothing is certain and it is difficult to predict what will or will not happen and when.

If indeed HP is considering a wider roll out of Linux, that would be excellent news. That would mean that the number one and two computer makers would both be offering Linux. After that, it seems likely that the rest would follow shortly.

Selling Linux on one computer model might be a tiny step, but it is a step that could lead to another and another. Do you think this a sign that HP will be selling more computers with Linux soon or is that too far fetched?