Lenovo To Shun Linux

In an extremely odd move, computer maker Lenovo will not install or support Linux on any of its PCs, including Thinkpads and a series of new notebooks. Why is this odd? Well, the Thinkpad had an extremely large Linux following – one that IBM worked fairly hard to build. Go to any Linux convention and you'll see rows after row of Thinkpads and Apples. While it's no surprise they won't be installing Linux, officially calling it not supported is a big step. One has to wonder what IBM will use internally if Lenovo starts to move toward laptops that simply won't run Linux. That part alone could get interesting. But that's not the odd part though. Just a day before this announcement from Lenovo, the government-run Central Trust of China mandated for the first time that all desktop computers purchased from now on must be Linux-compatible. Those two items didn't seem to jive, so I started doing some more research. It seems Lenovo may now be back tracking a little, according to this CNet article. One has to wonder what happened here. Was there something more to the recent 1.2B dollar deal between Microsoft and Lenovo? Would the company really leave Linux completely unsupported despite a Chinese mandate that all government desktops be compatible? Hard to tell at this point, but I didn't like the deal when it happened and I am liking it less and less now.
–jeremy
Lenovo, Linux, Thinkpad, Open Source, Microsoft