Sun hopes that supporting the operating system will expose its hardware to a new group of users. A company spokesman denied that the support was aimed as a move against Red Hat and SuSE.

SAN FRANCISCO–At JavaOne, both sides say they really like each other–suggesting a role for Ubuntu's upcoming “Dapper Drake” operating system on Sun Microsystems' servers.

Ubuntu Linux got a ringing endorsement from Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz on Tuesday. In turn, Ubuntu project founder Mark Shuttleworth appeared on stage here during Schwartz's opening keynote at JavaOne to endorse Java.

“Ubuntu is gaining a ton of momentum,” Schwartz said in a meeting with reporters after his keynote presentation. “It is arguably one of the most important–if not the most important–Linux distro out there.” That's a poke in the eye for Red Hat and Novell, the other two major Linux distributors.