Rust-Written Apple DRM Linux Kernel Driver Renders First Cube

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Rust-Written Apple DRM Linux Kernel Driver Renders A Cube

The very early stage Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver being written in the Rust programming language to support the Apple M1/M2 graphics processor achieved the milestone of being able to render a cube...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-Apple-DRM-Cube-Milestone

[gosh000]

Good achievement!

[jrdoane]

Good achievement!

With Rust noless. What a time it is to be alive!

[kozman]

With Rust noless. What a time it is to be alive!

Truly! A year or two ago no one probably thought this could ever be done in Rust. It's come a long way.

[muncrief]

I'm very curious to see how an unfinished and ever changing programming language like Rust will work in an operating system. Heck, I couldn't even get four out of five demos to run a few years ago because Rust is such a mess that too many things had changed since the demos were written a year before. It was really odd, as it seemed that there was no concept of backward compatibility in Rust development at all.

Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas Rust is attempting to implement. However I also like the ideas nuclear fusion is attempting to implement, but still wouldn't make an experimental Tokamak part of an energy infrastructure.

Instead I would wait until development had finished, standards had been fully established, and extensive tests had been completed to assure functionality and safety.

And then introduce Rust, or Tokamaks, as functional products.

[microcode]

With Rust noless. What a time it is to be alive!

I read this in the Károly Zsolnai-Fahér voice.

[Eberhardt]

It was really odd, as it seemed that their was no concept of backward compatibility in Rust development at all.

Apparently, Rust's backwards compatibility is extremely good. Rust uses editions which allows you to run any code that was written for Rust 1.0 (from 2015) or later even on the latest compiler version. New editions (like 2018 and 2021) may introduce breaking changes, but you can just keep using previous editions. You can even use crates from 2015 in 2021 edition code without any problems. IMO that's ideal: Rust is not stuck with bad design decisions of the past but still maintains perfect backwards compatibility.

[hrxixv]

It was really odd, as it seemed that their was no concept of backward compatibility in Rust development at all.

See https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-gu...ons/index.html. Backwards incompatible changes are only introduced in new editions. The compiler supports all previous editions, and crates written in different editions can be used together. This allows them to make backwards incompatible changes without forcing migration of existing code.

[saladin]

As much as I love Rust, the fact that this driver is written in Rust should not be the main focus of this article. I'm just excited about getting more and more hardware compatibility in the kernel.

Once this manages to get upstreamed, the language will be a benefit to maintenance. Until then, who cares? Heck, it'll be harder to integrate into the source tree and there'll be less people to review it. At least for this the limited target options of rustc won't matter. We'll just have to see how it comes along.

[karolherbst]

I'm very curious to see how an unfinished and ever changing programming language like Rust will work in an operating system. Heck, I couldn't even get four out of five demos to run a few years ago because Rust is such a mess that too many things had changed since the demos were written a year before. It was really odd, as it seemed that their was no concept of backward compatibility in Rust development at all.

Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas Rust is attempting to implement. However I also like the ideas nuclear fusion is attempting to implement, but still wouldn't make an experimental Tokamak part of an energy infrastructure.

Instead I would wait until development had finished, standards had been fully established, and extensive tests had been completed to assure functionality and safety.

And then introduce Rust, or Tokamaks, as functional products.

I am wondering why people keep bringing up such non issues. The linux kernel also fails to compile due to newer compilers and other funny things. If we'd go by your logic, we wouldn't write software at all, but still discuss standards.