version 8.1 distribution file is not versioned

[nunotex]

Hello,

I upgraded memtest86 v4.0 to v4.3.7 on FreeBSD and I have no problems because all distribution files (cd-rom, usb and floppy) have version in it. This way I can have checksums for 4.3.7 version.

Now I want to include 8.1 in same port so that bios with UEFI are supported as well. The main problem that I find is that there is no version on distribution file (memtest86-usb.zip). It is possible that this port can fetch it, but if a new release comes up, I will have checksum errors because upstream distfile have changed.

Please take a look at FreshPorts.org: memtest86

Other thing that I noticed is that memtest86 don't have a repository with older versions, e.g., downloads page only have current version 8.1 and legacy 4.3.7. In this way, if 8.2 version is up, distfile 8.1 will be lost. The same for 4.3.7.

I know that memtest86 is not OpenSource but ISOs can be ported to any OS because any OS can burn it into media.

GITHUB: I was thinking creating a github repository so I can track older versions and repack ISOs in a better way and ISOs will be unchanged.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Nuno Teixeira

[David (PassMark)]

We have had versioned download links in the past. But MemTest86 has collected 1000s of incoming links from external sites over the last 20 years. These are direct download links to the Zip and ISO files. Most of these external sites never bother to update their links. So we have people downloading V2 and V3 (releases from the years 2002 and 2004) thinking it was the latest software. As most people never bother to check the current version (as they don't even visit out web site). This in turn leads to massive support problems, as a large number of people are using old buggy software which isn't compatible with new hardware.

Yes, this means there is no easy way to get particular versions of older software from our site.

We have also stopped distributing ISO files. As all UEFI machines can now do USB booting and the latest version is UEFI only. (we are working on a improved USB image to ISO image conversion process however to deal with people who from political reasons can only use ISOs).

Yes, if you want to re-distribute the binary packages that is OK. But we can't offer any technical support on the old releases, nor want to encourage people to use old software.