Hi SMB Community,
I was planning on writing a blog post on driver and firmware updates - and then realized that I haven't covered, in detail, what the Lenovo Linux program actually is; and that's an important part of how we deliver driver and firmware updates! So...what is the Lenovo Linux program?
We certify approximately 40 different platforms every year with Linux - this ensures that Linux runs well on these platforms and that we'll support Linux on them.
The platforms we certify are listed on www.lenovo.com/linux - and that page gets updated when we complete certification on a platform. But what does certification actually mean?
We certify Ubuntu on all the platforms in the program. We collaborate with the Ubuntu engineers and they get access to our prototype hardware. In conjunction with the Lenovo engineering teams, and hardware vendors, the Linux experts at Ubuntu test our platforms and deliver any fixes needed. When complete it ensures the platform performs to their expectations - details on the Canonical certification program are here: https://ubuntu.com/certified.
At the end of the certification program we get an Ubuntu image that we use as the image in manufacturing for anybody who orders a system with Ubuntu installed.
An important aspect of the Ubuntu program is that as well as ensuring that support for the platform is in Ubuntu, all fixes are delivered 'up-stream' into the public software repositories. This means that any Linux distribution will run well (once they pick up the updates).
When the Ubuntu certification is done, we do some internal testing to ensure the image meets Lenovo quality standards, and we do e-testing to ensure the image meets the various worldwide energy standards (e-star etc). Once that is complete the image is ready to be used on our systems.
We also certify Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a subset of our platforms (https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware). These are focused on enterprise related platforms - usually Workstations and ThinkCentre. As with Ubuntu we work directly with the Red Hat engineers to fix issues and get support included into RHEL.
Finally we collaborate with the Fedora community on a number of platforms. There is no certification program here so this involves internal testing and QA, and working with the community to pull in fixes.
Summary: If you buy a Linux preload you can be confident that it will work well with Linux, and that you will be supported for any issues found.
Let me know if any questions about the program. There are other pieces around how Lenovo contributes directly āupstreamā and works with HW vendors to improve Linux support that Iāll cover in a future post.
Thanks,Ā
Dive into the entire Learning Linux SeriesĀ or catch up on the previous post "Applications on Linux."Ā
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