The French parliament has chosen Ubuntu to power the desktop computers of its representatives and their assistants.

Parlement Français is to dump Windows for the Linux distribution on 1,154 desktop systems before the start of the next parliamentary session in June.

The systems will also adopt a series of open source tools to run the OpenOffice productivity suite that is bundled with most Ubuntu downloads, as well as the open source Firefox browser.

The move will be considered a boost for French open source developers. France Telecom, IT services firm Bull and INRIA, a computer sciences research institute, were the driving force behind the ObjectWeb open source consortium.

But the ObjectWeb group has struggled to gain traction internationally, and merged with Orientware in January to form OW2.

Ubuntu is a desktop Linux distribution which has proved popular with computer enthusiasts. The software is based on Debian and is sponsored by Canonical.

The distribution is different from Novell's SuSE in that it provides free downloads of executable code, and allows anyone to support the software.

Red Hat does not offer a desktop Linux distribution and requires a paid subscription for the download of executable files of its server software. Novell offers SuSE as a free download, but charges a subscription fee for updates.