Hello,
Normally I buy Supermicro servers. Updating the bios works most of the time fine with the free program Flashrom.[1] But now I have bought a type what is not supported by Flashrom.
Because of that, the program asks which type of programmer to use, and presents a list. But I don't know which one to choose. And Supermicro support does not know that too.
When I ask Supermicro support (Europe) for another solution to upgrade the bios, they only can advice me to create a bootable USB stick with MS-DOS using a Windows PC.
This are servers what are used much with free software, in my opinion it's normal to have some way to upgrade the bios without Windows.
I would like to ask you if you think about buying a Supermicro server, first to ask Supermicro support for a way to update the bios. You can ask it to your sales-person, or here in Europe you can ask it at "support at supermicro dot nl".
With regards, Paul van der Vlis.
[1] http://flashrom.org/Flashrom