Lenovo to Ship Linux on Select Notebooks

Following in the footsteps of Dell, Lenovo said Monday that it plans to give both consumers and businesses the option to have Linux installed as the default operating system over Windows on select models. The company announced a partnership with Novell that puts SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on laptop models aimed at commercial customers, although they would also be available to individual customers as well.

Support for the OS would come from Lenovo itself, with Novell providing the maintenance updates directly to customers. "We have seen more customers utilizing and requesting open source notebook solutions in education, government and the enterprise since our ThinkPad T60p Linux announcement, and today's announcement expands upon our efforts by offering customers more Linux options," Lenovo notebook business chief Sam Dusi said.