HP Monday announced an ambitious expansion of support for the Debian Linux distribution at the LinuxWorld Expo, with plans to support the distribution on its servers, as well as a thin client offering based on Debian code.

HP said it will add Debian to its ProLiant stand-alone servers, as well as its BladeSystem blade server hardware. (Red Hat and Novell SuSE are the two major Linux distributions HP offered official support for, previously.) HP is the first major server vendors - Dell, IBM and Sun among them - to add Debian to its preferred Linux distribution list.

HP also said it will now offer remote server monitoring and troubleshooting services as an option for the Linux systems it supports. (Previously, HP only did this for Windows.) The offering is aimed at companies looking to deploy large Linux-based data centers or computing infrastructures, but who may not have enough in-house Linux expertise to manage and support the software.

On the desktop HP launched its 5725 thin client, which is based on Debian code. The client is targeted at kiosk-type deployments - such as computerized information stations in public buildings, self-checkout or pricing info in stores, or for public Web/e-mail-checking machines. The thin client - including hardware and software - is prices at $400.

Debian is one of the oldest and most stable Linux distribution, and one of the most popular with Linux desktop users and programmers. It's listed as the fifth-most downloaded Linux distribution by Distrowatch.com, which tracks Linux distribution downloads. Unlike SuSE and Red Hat, Debian has no corporate entity supporting the free software, whereas SuSE and Red Hat offer both a for-sale corporate version, and freely-downloadable "community" versions of their software.