The new “Lenny” release of Debian expected in September includes a pre-configured KDE environment. In this hands-on review, DesktopLinux Founder Rick Lehrbaum sets up the “beta 2″ preview release of “Lenny KDE,” and explains in detail how to configure it for use as an Internet workstation.

HP has started shipping a $500 mini-notebook pre-installed with SUSE Linux. Boasting perhaps the largest keyboard in its class, the HP 2133 Mini-Note has an 8.9-inch WXGA display, 4GB of solid-state storage, 512MB of RAM, and a 1GHz Via C7 processor, with ExpressCard and SD-card expansion.

[Updated 3:50] — Dell is shipping two new laptops with widescreen LCD displays and Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) operating systems with DVD playback. Additionally, the largest U.S. PC maker has started offering Hardy Heron on three models previously available with the earlier Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu release.

IBM announced a partnership with Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat to sell “Microsoft-free desktops,” says an eWeek story by Chris Preimesberger. The Linux software giants will work with hardware manufacturers to market custom-designed PCs preloaded with Lotus word processing and collaboration software, says the story.

A startup called Unison Technologies has released a commercial “unified communications” groupware suite based on Ubuntu Server, and announced a beta release of a Ubuntu desktop client. The Unison suite combines e-mail, instant messaging, a PBX, contacts, and calendaring, says the company.