HP's Linux support will no longer be limited to Red Hat and SuSE Linux. Through a new partnership with Canonical, HP is becoming one of the latest in a series of huge IT players to hop aboard the Ubuntu Linux bandwagon.

More specifically, HP and Linux distributor Canonical are now working toward full certification of Ubuntu on HP Proliant servers, according to Mark Murphy, Canonical's alliances manager.

"This will give another layer of assurance to users and customers -- particularly in the enterprise -- with market leader HP recognizing the growing importance of Ubuntu to enterprise and SMB customers," Murphy wrote in the Canonical Blog on Monday. "The certification means HP will list Ubuntu as a supported operating system and verify the work undertaken by Canonical to ensure full certified compatibility. Furthermore, both companies are fully cooperating at the engineering level to provide full underlying confidence for HP customers using the certified servers."

Meanwhile, earlier this month, HP released an Ubuntu-based custom OS for its Mini 1000 Mi Edition netbook.

Like IBM, although not in the same ways, HP is now adding Ubuntu to a roster of Linux distributions previously limited to Red Hat and Novell's SuSE Linux.

IBM has started to roll Ubuntu support into some of its software. In December, IBM and its partner Virtual Bridges rolled out a Virtual Desktop solution that runs on Ubuntu servers.

For its part, systems vendor Sun Microsystems kicked off its own partnership with Canonical years ago. Canonical now offers full commercial support for Ubuntu on about a dozen different PC workstations and UltraSparc- and x86-based servers from Sun.

Meanwhile, Canonical is also now in beta with Ubuntu Server on Amazon.com's EC2 cloud platform.