Should we change memtest to use elf binary?

[Chris J Arges]

On 11/14/2013 03:54 AM, Loïc Minier wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013, Dave Chiluk wrote:
>> Basically the current way we run memtest breaks on machines with very
>> little low memory.  The proposed solution is to use the memtest elf
>> binary instead and load it into high memory.  Can I please get some more
>> eyes on this bug before I attempt to push harder on this?
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/memtest86+/+bug/560839
> 
> I've commented on the bug, but basically: I've tested the change on a
> problematic machine, and it worked for me.  At some point I was running
> the multiboot version of memtest, but that didn't work anymore since a
> couple of releases.
> 
>> Also should we commit this change just into development or should we SRU
>> this back into earlier releases?
> 
> I don't think it's too useful to SRU; people can boot recent
> installation media to run memtest from USB stick as a workaround to the
> locally installed one being broken.

That's still a workaround. It would make sense to perhaps test this
first in the development version and see how it works for people. Then
if it seems to not be problematic then considering an SRU could be an
option.

  It might be possible to trigger a
> memtest from a remove serial console, but I guess the most common use
> case is to locally start it when investigating a hardware issue, or when
> installing new hardware.
>