Redox OS Makes Progress On Dynamic Linking, New Ports

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Redox OS Makes Progress On Dynamic Linking, New Ports

The Rust-written Redox OS open-source operating system is out with a new status report to highlight the progress their developers made over the course of January...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Redox-OS-January-2025

[-MacNuke-]

With blocking Linux core maintainers it is good to see RedoxOS is making progress. When Linux goes the way Xorg went, without maintainers wanting to touch that code ever again we need something new. Sure, will take a couple of years. Took a while for Linux too.

[zexelon]

With blocking Linux core maintainers it is good to see RedoxOS is making progress. When Linux goes the way Xorg went, without maintainers wanting to touch that code ever again we need something new. Sure, will take a couple of years. Took a while for Linux too.

Its going to take more like a couple of decades. That said Redox is making amazing strides and I am really hopeful they can make it! Its a breath of fresh air in the OS world.

[Gamer1227]

With blocking Linux core maintainers it is good to see RedoxOS is making progress. When Linux goes the way Xorg went, without maintainers wanting to touch that code ever again we need something new. Sure, will take a couple of years. Took a while for Linux too.

It is easier for Linux to surpass Windows in the desktop, than anything replace Linux.

Dozens of companies are too invested in the Linux ecosystem to replace it. Wake up dude.

[kozman]

> - Upgrading from the Rust 1.80 to Rust 1.86 compiler toolchain. <

That can't be right. 1.85 stable isn't even out yet.

[Aeder]

It is easier for Linux to surpass Windows in the desktop, than anything replace Linux.

Dozens of companies are too invested in the Linux ecosystem to replace it. Wake up dude.

Redox OS aims for compatibility with the Linux User Space, so for a lot of companies absolutely nothing would change.

And given that it is a micro kernel, nothing stops you from grabbing a linux driver, remove the linux specific bits, add the necessary interfaces, gradually port to Rust and then release it as a GPLv2 driver for Redox, you don't exactly need to do everything from scratch.

Even so, it's true that it will take a decade for it to stabilize, but the most popular parts could be ported a lot faster than that.

[FedFer]

> - Upgrading from the Rust 1.80 to Rust 1.86 compiler toolchain. <

That can't be right. 1.85 stable isn't even out yet.

They're using a nightly toolchain. This version to be specific.

channel = "nightly-2025-01-12"

[rmfx]

I wish I was a billionaire, I would definitely get them a couple millions of funding to see what they can achieve.

[ferry]

And given that it is a micro kernel, nothing stops you from grabbing a linux driver, remove the linux specific bits, add the necessary interfaces, gradually port to Rust and then release it as a GPLv2 driver for Redox, you don't exactly need to do everything from scratch.

Exactly, and this is a lot more work than it sounds. Just dive into a driver, say dwc3 and try to figure out from the code what all those register do. Then try to decide which of those things are linux specific and need to be dropped and replaced by something Redox specific.

And then, after all that work you will have something that does exactly the same as linux.

[PeeWee]

And then, after all that work you will have something that does exactly the same as linux.

Well, not exactly, since it's microkernel those drivers would thus live in user space, so no additional attack surface in the kernel. That is to say, on the face of it it may look exactly like Linux but it will have very different security envelope.