Lenovo began teasing its new Linux initiative several months ago (refresh your memory here and here). Just in time to meet its “Summer 2020” promise, the first wave of Fedora-powered ThinkPads are now up for sale on Lenovo’s webshop. But it’s not merely this expected launch that has me excited; it’s how refreshingly visible they’re making the Linux option.

After being announced by the Fedora Linux team back in April, the rollout of Fedora across Lenovo laptops appears to have begun along with a sale.

The first model appearing with Fedora as an option is the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8. Not only has it rolled out with Fedora, it's right there on the store and you can't miss it as it shows up first, as it's also the cheapest option for this model available right now.

Towards the end of April 2020, Lenovo announced its collaboration with the Red Hat-sponsored community project, Fedora Linux. It aimed at bringing Lenovo’s ThinkPad P1 Gen2, ThinkPad P53, and ThinkPad X1 Gen8 laptops with Fedora 32 pre-loaded.

Finally, after a worthwhile wait of over four months, Lenovo has started offering its ThinkPad laptops with a pre-installed Fedora workstation. As of now, ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen8 is the first laptop that is now available to buy, while others are still to come.

This weekend the X1 Carbon with Fedora Workstation went live in North America on Lenovos webstore. This is a big milestone for us and for Lenovo as its the first time Fedora ships pre-installed on a laptop from a major vendor and its the first time the worlds largest laptop maker ships premium laptops with Linux directly to consumers. Currently only the X1 Carbon is available, but more models is on the way and more geographies will get added too soon. As a sidenote, the X1 Carbon and more has actually been available from Lenovo for a couple of Months now, it is just the web sales that went online now. So if you are a IT department buying Lenovo laptops in bulk, be aware that you can already buy the X1 Carbon and the P1 for instance through the direct to business sales channel.

Lenovo kicked off the Summer of 2020 by claiming it would certify both their ThinkPad and ThinkStation hardware lines for Linux. The hardware giant is making good on that promise and is now offering a laptop preloaded with Fedora Linux.

At the moment, there’s only one device offered with Fedora. Said device is the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8. The base price of this laptop is $2,145.00, but with the coupon THINKPROMO that price is cut to $1,287.00. The base model includes a 10th gen Intel Core i5-10210U CPU (1.60 GHz) with 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and a 6 MB cache, 8 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 256 GB PCIe SSD, 14.0" FHD (1920x1080) IPS anti-glare display, a 720p HD camera, Intel Wi-Fi 6, and a Fingerprint Reader. Of course, you can configure up to a 10th gen Intel Core i7, 16 GB of RAM, a 1 TB PCIe SSD, and a 4K UHD (3840x2160) IPS display for a total of $3,451 (using the THINKPROMO coupon drops that price to $2,070.60).

As noted this weekend, Lenovo has begun offering Fedora pre-loaded on their systems beginning with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 laptop. Red Hat's Christian Schaller who serves as the senior manager for desktop chimed in with some additional thoughts and details on this achievement.

Schaller has penned a lengthy blog post covering the milestone of Fedora now being available from the Lenovo web store as part of the X1 Carbon while more models are to come.

Earlier this year we learned that Lenovo was going to start selling some ThinkPad laptops with Fedora Linux as an alternative to Windows. Now you can buy one.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 is a 2.4 pound laptop that measures 0.6 inches thick, features two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an HDMI 1. port, and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and support for up to a 4K display and up to an Intel Core i7-10610U processor.

Previously available only with Windows, you can now configure the laptop with Fedora Linux and save about $44 in the process (although with a starting price of $1287 at the moment, this is still very much a premium laptop).

If you are in the market for a new next laptop you may be interested to know that the previously launched ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 laptop installed with Microsoft Windows 10 operating system is now available to purchase pre-installed with the Fedora Linux operating system instead.

The first consumer-facing Lenovo laptop shipping with Fedora is available to purchase, with several additional forthcoming featuring Fedora, RHEL and Ubuntu. To celebrate the achievement, Red Hat Senior Software Engineering Manager Christian Schaller has penned an enormous and decidedly effusive blog post regarding these new Fedora-powered ThinkPads. Schaller also summarizes Red Hat’s prior efforts to push Linux forward, and teases a few interesting things on the laptop roadmap.

The first Lenovo ThinkPad preinstalled with Fedora 32 Workstation is now available to buy.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 is the first laptop in Lenovo's ThinkPad series to get the Fedora treatment, coming four months after the manufacturer teamed up with the Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Project to pilot a new series of Linux community edition devices.

For years, ThinkPads, first from IBM and then from Lenovo, were Linux users' top laptop pick. Then, in 2008 Lenovo turned its back on desktop Linux. Lenovo has seen the error of its ways. Today, for the first time in much too long, Lenovo has released a ThinkPad with a ready-to-run Linux. And, not just any Linux, but Red Hat's community Linux, Fedora.

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First in this new Linux-friendly lineup is the X1 Carbon Gen 8. It will be followed by forthcoming versions of the ThinkPad P1 Gen2 and ThinkPad P53. While ThinkPads are usually meant for business users, Lenovo will be happy to sell the Fedora-powered X1 Carbon to home users as well.

The new X1 Carbon runs Fedora Workstation 32. This cutting-edge Linux distribution uses the Linux Kernel 5.6. It includes WireGuard virtual private network (VPN) support and USB4 support. This Fedora version uses the new GNOME 3.36 for its default desktop.

The system itself comes standard with a 10th Generation Intel Core 1.6Ghz i5-10210U CPU, with up to 4.20 GHz with Turbo Boost. This processor boasts 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and a 6 MB cache.

There are many Linux distributions nowadays, but sometimes it feels like Ubuntu gets all the attention. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is worthy of its praise -- it is a great operating system. Still, why can't other distros shine sometimes? Companies that sell Linux-based computers, like Dell and System76, offer Ubuntu on their Linux computers, but what about Fedora?

Well, if you are a big Fedora fan like me, I have some seriously amazing news. Popular computer-maker Lenovo has started selling a Fedora variant of its ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 laptop (Windows 10 is an option too). The 14-inch notebook is thin, light, and gorgeous. A ThinkPad running Fedora? It looks like Christmas came early this year...