When IBM sold its personal computer division to Chinese PC maker Lenovo, one of the flagship products that went along on that sale was its invaluable ThinkPad notebook line, home of some of the best engineering I've seen in notebook PCs in the entire time they've been on the market. Now Lenovo is preparing to take the ThinkPad a step ahead and ship them with SUSE Linux preinstalled.

Lenovo seems to have a love/hate relationship with Linux. Last year, it began offering its high-end T60p ThinkPad laptop with SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). This year, the company is releasing its newest high-end laptop, the T61p ThinkPad, and once more, while it runs desktop Linux, the company isn't overly eager to let the world know about it.

Recently, many larger OEM system builders have started offering a selection of their models with Linux distributions pre-installed. Really big names such as Dell and Lenovo have offered this service.
Unfortunately, DesktopLinux.com reports that Lenovo have pulled out and will no longer offer Linux pre-installs on any of their home-oriented systems.

ThinkPad customers will soon have a new configuration option, as Lenovo and Novell have announced that the popular laptops will begin shipping with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED) preinstalled.

The VAR Guy runs hot and cold on Lenovo. One minute, he praises Lenovo’s ThinkPad brand. The next, he openly wonders if Lenovo can hold off rivals like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer. Plus, Lenovo’s server strategy — particularly as it relates to Linux — is nowhere to be seen.

eWEEK’s Channel Labs takes a look at Lenovo’s latest offering in the notebook computer market, a portable with Novell’s SUSE Linux pre-installed.

Lenovo finally started shipping SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on its T-Series ThinkPads for its mainstream business users. Now, the company appears to be considering offering another Linux, very possibly Ubuntu, for the enthusiast market.

The ThinkPad T61p is built for data-intensive work requiring 3-D graphics. The 15.4-inch widescreen machine runs 10% cooler than previous models and three decibels quieter, the company said.

Lenovo today announced its IdeaPad U1, a consumer Windows laptop with a touchscreen that can be detached and used as a separate Linux tablet computer.