Linux Developers Continue Evaluating The Path To Adding Rust Code To The Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Developers Continue Evaluating The Path To Adding Rust Code To The Kernel

As mentioned back in July, upstream Linux developers have been working to figure out a path for adding Rust code to the Linux kernel. That topic is now being further explored at this week's virtual Linux Plumbers Conference and it's still looking like it will happen, it's just a matter of when the initial infrastructure will be in place and how slowly the rollout will be...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Kernel-Rust-Path-LPC2020

[kpedersen]

Interesting presentation:

Slide 5: "Use Cargo for dependencies? NO! In tree code only. Not going to make builds require the network"

Good to see the kernel developers are sane. The broken JavaScript style dependency management is my absolutely least favorite aspect of Rust development (a complete deal breaker). If the Linux guys can solve this and demonstrate a robust alternative, I think that will be a massive benefit to the Rust community.

The unsafe{} stuff is obviously good to isolate potentially unsafe sections, but I think it it might be a bit oversold. For example a section could be both completely safe and completely unsafe depending on the context it is called. For example it is very easy to make Rust OpenGL bindings crash (even though unsafe{} tags are used correctly), you just need to bind and call operations in invalid orders. And the kernel is full of this complexity.

[muncrief]

Well, this reminds me of the Wayland debate.

I mean my goodness, Rust is poly-unstable and still in heavy development. How on Earth are they going to put Rust code in a stable kernel?

[Mario Junior]

I really don't understand this masturbation about rust. C doesn't work? C++ doesn't work? Assembly doesn't work?

It seems that Mozilla that shoves Rust down everyone's throat. Another thing is that now it seems that it has become fashionable to rewrite everything in Rust.

I don't say that as a programmer, but as a user. Every time I needed to compile something that needed Rust in Gentoo, it was absurd the time needed to compile compared to something written in C or C
++. Rust is bloated as hell.

Remember: I'm not a programmer, so maybe I'm talking nonsense. Correct me if necessary.

[creoflux]

Interesting presentation:

Slide 5: "Use Cargo for dependencies? NO! In tree code only. Not going to make builds require the network"

Good to see the kernel developers are sane. The broken JavaScript style dependency management is my absolutely least favorite aspect of Rust development (a complete deal breaker). If the Linux guys can solve this and demonstrate a robust alternative, I think that will be a massive benefit to the Rust community.

I agree with this sentiment, it should really be current "modern web" because JavaScript could be sanely applied. It seemed like a over a decade ago jQuery dependency the only acceptable bloat. But for some reason a vast interdependent mess of constantly deprecated packages is the new norm.

Python occasionally has this sort of mess happening. In the future , I imagine people will pip install until the packages mush together into a coherent app no coding required.

[RahulSundaram]

Interesting presentation:

Slide 5: "Use Cargo for dependencies? NO! In tree code only. Not going to make builds [FONT=sans-serif]require the network"

Good to see the kernel developers are sane. The broken JavaScript style dependency management is my absolutely least favorite aspect of Rust development (a complete deal breaker). If the Linux guys can solve this and demonstrate a robust alternative, I think that will be a massive benefit to the Rust community

Don't see how, in the same slide "Cargo supports explicitly building offline-only, using in-tree code only" and distributions like Fedora already built all the Rust packages they want in a non-networked chroot already. Downloading on demand is an optional feature in Cargo. You don't have to use it

[RahulSundaram]

I really don't understand this masturbation about rust. C doesn't work? C++ doesn't work? Assembly doesn't work?

It seems that Mozilla that shoves Rust down everyone's throat. Another thing is that now it seems that it has become fashionable to rewrite everything in Rust.

Remember: I'm not a programmer, so maybe I'm talking nonsense. Correct me if necessary.

I am not sure if it useful to debate the choice of a programming language if you are not a programmer but this push within Linux kernel is from other kernel developers. It has nothing to do with Mozilla in any way.

[xorbe]

I don't understand putting rust into a kernel of low level C source code.

[andrei_me]

Remember: I'm not a programmer, so maybe I'm talking nonsense. Correct me if necessary.

I'm a programmer, let me make an analogy:

Imagine that you are use to write using a pencil with weak grafite that breaks constantly, and you have to sharp it every time.
Then someone creates something called pen, looks like a pencil, you handle it the same way with your hand, it uses ink instead of grafite, you can't erase it easily but it is more comfortable to write.

It would be something like that

[Almindor]

Well, this reminds me of the Wayland debate.

I mean my goodness, Rust is poly-unstable and still in heavy development. How on Earth are they going to put Rust code in a stable kernel?

No it's not. Stable rust is you know.. stable.