Bug#1051304: error: out of memory

[Daniel Richard G.]

Package: grub-efi-amd64
Version: 2.06-13
Severity: important

I have encountered a situation where grub-efi-amd64 reports

    error: out of memory

in the pre-boot environment despite the system having an adequate amount
of RAM (8 GB). This occurs when attempting to load an ISO9660 image file
via loopback, e.g.

    loopback loop /path/to/debian-live-11.2.0-amd64-standard.iso

    (note that this ISO file is ~1 GB in size)

This issue is easily reproducible in VirtualBox with an EFI-based VM. I
do notice that a somewhat smaller ISO (systemrescue-10.01-amd64.iso,
~740 MB) is able to be loaded via loopback and booted. Also, this issue
does NOT occur on grub-pc with an equally-spec'ed BIOS-based VM; that
one can boot the same ISO file just fine.

This issue appears to match the following one from the Ubuntu side:

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1842320

That one revolved more around loading larger initrd files, which
prevented some users' installed systems from booting. The issue was
resolved earlier this year, so assuming it is the same as this one, a
fix should be readily available.

-- 
Daniel Richard G. || skunk at iSKUNK.ORG
My ASCII-art .sig got a bad case of Times New Roman.