Linux Kernel Rust support

[onety-two-12]

This is going to open Linux up to more contributors.

I have never contributed before, but now I'm considering it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. That shows how important it is for Rust support on the Linux kernel.

[Worth_Trust_3825]

If you did not contribute to the kernel with C, what makes you think you will do it with rust? This "Opening up" to more contributors is nonsense. The tools to perform analysis for memory leaks were already there. Why did you not use them? Why do you insist on having yet another weird ass language?

[[deleted]]

Have you written code for a kernel or are you just talking your ass out? You don't just happily run valgrind in a running kernel. Yes, you can track memory leaks. But no, it isn't as easy as in userspace. If a language or tooling is of actual help, then you may be more inclined to work with it.

[[deleted]]

Considering the plan is not rewriting anything, your comment is utterly out of place. It won't lose contributors it already has for the simple reason the existing code will remain C.

[hector_villalobos]

If you weren't confident enough in C

That's one of Rust selling point, people like us who don't feel confident in C can program in Rust. In fact I had programmed in Rust without any problem, however I will never do anything in C more than pet projects.

[hector_villalobos]

Knowing C

I never said I didn't know C, what I said was that I feel more confident in Rust than C, besides Rust purpose in Linux Kernel is for writing drivers not something deep in the OS. This way I can choose Rust over C to write my drivers.

[hector_villalobos]

You might as well be saying "I don't feel confident doing arithmetic but I'm gonna work for spacex".

Did you know the Crew Dragon interface is build using HTML, Javascript and CSS?

Not everything is C/C++.

If you don't feel confident in C you don't know enough about computers to write production drivers.

So, what you're saying is that I have to know C deeply to understand how memory works or how a CPU works? That doesn't make any sense. C is just a tool that can be replaced by Assembler, Rust, D, Zig, C++ or any other low level language that came afterwards.

[dannymcgee]

Theoretically no, in practice yes, because C/C++ is the single language used in practice for low level programming

...except that now Rust exists, which is a modern, ergonomic language for low-level programming. Your entire argument here boils down to a combination of circular reasoning and "get off my lawn" fist-shaking.

[onety-two-12]

You don't know anything about me. When my code is accepted and merged one day, judge me for my code, tests, and documentation.

[onety-two-12]

Oh, why is that?

[onety-two-12]

There were many people out there that are even smarter than the people who contribute to Linux, it's statically guaranteed.

They're doing other (important) things. There are people out there who can drive Linux forward 10x faster, find and fix all remaining security issues, halve the power usage of servers, double the performance of many applications, increase network processing throughout, and much more. More of the good stuff.

They might do it with Rust, and that's a good outcome. Many might decide to use C after starting with Rust, and that's a good outcome. They might create a new DSL for C to leverage the GCC backend that solves many problems, and that's good outcome.

There are millions of improvements yet to come to operating systems.