"With Dell or IBM, when you need support for Debian, you'll find yourself getting pointed to a discussion group or a white paper," said Wade. "HP will take real calls from real customers."

Debian users will still get product updates and patches through the Debian Web site, not through HP. HP has also not determined when it will ship servers preinstalled with Debian.

Eighteen percent of the servers HP sold last year were for Linux, Wade said.

HP also announced a Debian thin client and said it is adding remote monitoring and diagnostic tools to HP Linux servers that will help solve customer problems.

In 2005, HP said, it took more than 48,000 customer calls and solved more than 99.5 percent of the problems using its 6,500 trained support providers, Wade said. "In other words, we only escalated 180 calls to Red Hat or Novell all year," he said.