Silicon Mechanics to ship servers with free BIOS preinstalled

Silicon Mechanics, a manufacturer of server hardware, has committed to shipping servers with coreboot, a free BIOS, preinstalled.

Chris Watson at Silicon Mechanics said:

We will commit to offering coreboot preinstallation on the Rackform nServ A236 with a specific set of hardware and software. In the future, we may expand the program to additional platforms based on customer interest. We will include a message about coreboot support on the platform page in the next few days with instructions to contact sales for additional information.

To get a quote and purchasing information, please contact Art Mann at Silicon Mechanics.

The A236 is a 1U server with 4 drive bays built around a dual socket-F Opteron motherboard. The motherboard is based on the Supermicro H8DMR board that is supported in coreboot v2.

This is great news for the FSF's campaign for a free BIOS, and we've already purchased an A236 with coreboot preinstalled to replace an older server. We're very pleased to be able to easily purchase machines that are fully free from top to bottom.