Today, Lenovo announced that it"s certifying its entire lineup of ThinkPad and ThinkStation workstation PCs to run Linux. While you"ve always been able to install Linux on a ThinkPad, this change simply means that you won"t have to worry about any kind of compatibility issues.
Lenovo is promising end-to-end support when running Linux on a Think workstation, such as the P1 or P53. You"ll be able to get security patches, driver updates, firmware updates, and BIOS updates. The company also says that it will upstream drivers to the Linux kernel, so everything should work right away.
The two Linux distributions that are officially supported are Ubuntu and Red Hat, including Fedora and more. Lenovo also offers an OEM version of Ubuntu LTS, which promises to be more secure and stable than the more popular version of Ubuntu. You can also get the ThinkPad P53 and P1 Gen 2 pre-installed with Fedora.
This is all happening this month, and Lenovo says that it"s aiming to recognize the 2.87% of the PC market that"s using Linux. The change is going to include full web support, dedicated Linux forums, and more.