Always wipe and do a fresh install. If you’re installing Linux, its unlikely that the refurbisher will have installed your flavour of Linux anyway. If you want to dual-boot with Windows, most business ThinkPads come with a Windows Pro licence - just download the ISO and install it fresh, then install Linux.

Refurbished ThinkPads are awesome!

• Availability - ThinkPads are very popular in corporate environments and are generally replaced every 2-3 years. Although mostly Intel CPUs, there is a wide variety CPU+GPU available from lightweight to high performance.
• Tough + well built + last forever
• Easy to upgrade/repair. They’re very user-accessible and its simple to upgrade RAM or SSD/M.2 drives. Plus, because they are so popular in the corporate environment, replacement parts (from batteries to WiFi+Bluetooth chipsets to trckpads) are very available and cheap.
• Well supported in most (if not all) linux distros. Graphics just work, trackpads just work, WiFi just works.
• Cheap.

Sent from my ThinkPad T580 (with both an internal and removable battery, I get 10+ hours of battery life)