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I was previously using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 and now using Ubuntu Karmic 9.10. I am somewhat offended by the memory tests at the Grub2 start-up ? Why are they there ? Do I really need memory tests at start up ?

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    Offended? That's a bit of an odd reaction... Apr 16, 2010 at 7:13
  • @Ignacio Vasquez-Abrams : Well .... they are there in my Grub2 and I did nothing to install them ! .... does look funny !
    – Arkapravo
    Apr 16, 2010 at 7:41
  • They are there for your convenience. Ubuntu, as with many other Linux distributions, includes tools that you may find useful in the future, not just the bare minimum that gets things to work. Ubuntu doesn't charge you $200+ USD for an Office Suite--did you want to pay for a memory tester when you find out you need one?
    – Broam
    Apr 23, 2010 at 18:34

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The memory test is there so that you can test the memory in your machine.

This is not something I have ever done myself, it is only useful if you are having some problems with your computer and want to try to find the cause.

I think that it has appeared in the menu of every distribution I have used, so it is more likely that the Ubuntu developers have not got rid of it from the standard grub install rather than that they have chosen to put it there.

It does seem rather un-Ubuntu-ish (Ubuntu being aimed at users who would read this and think the computer will test how well the user can remember things), and I am quite surprised that it hasn't been got rid of; perhaps the Ubuntu developers don't have multiple operating systems on their computers so don't actually see the menu.

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  • The fact that Ubuntu targets less experienced users than some other distros is a good reason to keep the option visible; if you know how to customise Grub then you can easily add or remove the item, but if you don't, then you'd never be able to get to it. It's a lot easier to just never bother running memtest than it is to edit your grub menu because you need it.
    – Jon Hanna
    Oct 8, 2014 at 13:44
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Memtest86 and Memtest86+ are not part of the Grub bootloader, they are separate hardware diagnostic tools. They are included in Ubuntu's default boot menus for convenience.

They cannot be run under Linux (or Windows); they must be booted into like an operating system so that they can access the entirety of a machine's physical memory for testing.

If you don't want them in Ubuntu, you can remove the memtest86+ package through the Apt package manager:

sudo aptitude remove memtest86+

Alternately, you can simply remove them from the Grub menus with:

sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/*memtest*
sudo update-grub

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