Bug 660504 – sys-apps/memtest86-7.5 version bump

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description anonymous 2018-07-06 10:40:25 UTC]

https://www.memtest86.com/support/ver_history.htm shows a lot of tasty improvements on ECC since 4.3.7

[Comment 1 Ben Kohler 2019-01-15 17:12:00 UTC]

FYI I have packaged this in my personal overlay as memtest86-bin if you'd like to test that ebuild out.

https://github.com/benkohler/iamben-overlay/tree/master/sys-apps/memtest86-bin

Also FYI, recent versions are EFI-only.  7.5 claimed to have BIOS support but really it was just bundling a copy of 4.3.7 for BIOS users.  8.1 doesn't have that bundled BIOS version anymore.

[Comment 2 anonymous 2019-01-24 06:36:49 UTC]

I tested it. It works although there was a GUI rendering bug.

SRC_URI seemed somewhat fragile too.

[Comment 3 Teika kazura 2019-11-02 23:57:40 UTC]

@Ben Kohler:
The binary, memtest86-bin.efi, has to be put in an EFI partition, according to this forum thread: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8384750.html

Maybe the following is kind to users?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
pkg_postinst() {
    einfo "The binary, memtest86-bin.efi is installed in /boot."
    einfo "Copy it to an EFI partition if it is not the case."
    einfo "------"
    einfo "The message \"Assuming you do not have a separate /boot partition.\","
    einfo "which is emitted by eclass, is bogus. Ignore it."
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks crocket and Ben. Best regards.

[Comment 4 Ulrich Müller 2019-12-02 16:39:34 UTC]

Version 7.5 is under a proprietary license and will need at least mirror and bindist restrictions.

Not sure if even fetch restriction would be required. License is here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/benkohler/iamben-overlay/master/licenses/PassMark-EULA

Also, I wonder how Passmark Software could release this as binary only under a proprietary license, when version 4.3.7 was released under the GPL-2? MemTest86_User_Guide_UEFI.pdf clearly states (in Appendix D) that the code is "based on the original source code by Chris Brady" (which in turn contained some code from the Linux kernel). In addition, Appendix A of the above-mentioned PDF file seems to be mostly a copy of the README file of MemTest-86 v4.0.

CCing licenses team.

[Comment 5 Thomas Deutschmann (RETIRED) 2019-12-02 16:56:13 UTC]

See https://www.memtest86.com/history.htm

v5+ is a rewrite and they own Chris' copyright.

[Comment 6 Ben Kohler 2019-12-02 17:02:08 UTC]

I realize now that my ebuild relies heavily on the assumption that the ESP is mounted at /boot.  I welcome suggestions for adjusting src_install and the installed /etc/grub.d/ file to account for ESP being at /boot/efi or elsewhere.

Thanks

[Comment 7 Ulrich Müller 2019-12-02 17:03:21 UTC]

(In reply to Thomas Deutschmann from comment #5)
> v5+ is a rewrite

Very misleading then that they haven't changed the name, as if there wasn't enough confusion with memtest86 and memtest86+ already. :( This is basically a new package.