Linux 6.13 Hits A "Tipping Point" With More Rust Drivers Expected Soon

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.13 Hits A "Tipping Point" With More Rust Drivers Expected Soon

In addition to the USB updates and big staging flush merged yesterday for the Linux 6.13 kernel merge window, the "char/misc" pull was also honored for that catch-all of various kernel changes. With the char/misc pull there are some notable additions for those wanting to write kernel drivers within the Rust programming language...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-char-misc-More-Rust

[iustinp]

I know some people might grumble at this, but I'm very happy to hear, especially Greg, saying this is the tipping point. I don't have much time for personal coding lately, but Rust is a pleasure to code in, especially for a systems language. Looking forward to even more Rust code!

[Beryesa]

Hopefully a peaceful forum section as we progress beyond the classic, which some people seem to hate nevertheless

[kpedersen]

rust misc driver bindings and other rust changes to make misc drivers actually possible

Jeez, they have been working on hand crafted (Clearly bindgen is not fit for purpose) Rust bindings for over a year now. Are they not there yet? Who is going to maintain them?

This is all such a bad idea.

[cb88]

Jeez, they have been working on hand crafted (Clearly bindgen is not fit for purpose) Rust bindings for over a year now. Are they not there yet? Who is going to maintain them?

This is all such a bad idea.

Give it a rest.

[Volta]

Jeez, they have been working on hand crafted (Clearly bindgen is not fit for purpose) Rust bindings for over a year now. Are they not there yet? Who is going to maintain them?

This is all such a bad idea.

Yes, that will be fun when something breaks. This rust thing is against Linux principles, but since Linus and Hartman became clowns it's not surprising. In good kernel practices there's stated typedefs should be avoided. I bet rust abstractions are much worse than just typedefs in C. Oh, and this rust thing is built upon unstable API. When Hartman wasn't clown:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/stable-api-nonsense.rst

[kpedersen]

Yes, that will be fun when something breaks.

Indeed. When it all falls through and everything touching Rust needs to be ripped out again, even today's GNU Libre kernel will look featureful in comparison.

[oleid]

Oh look, Statler and Waldorf are already here.

Jeez, [...]

This is all such a bad idea.

It would seem people which have lots of kernel experience seem to disagree.

This rust thing is against Linux principles, but since Linus and Hartman became clowns it's not surprising.

I don't agree, so they must be clowns.

[bachchain]

Jeez, they have been working on hand crafted (Clearly bindgen is not fit for purpose) Rust bindings for over a year now. Are they not there yet?

All bindgen does is translate C's types into Rust's stdlib equivalents of the C types. It doesn't help at all with all of the type-system level invariant encodings that are the whole reason RFL exists in the first place. It has to be done manually because actual thought needs to be put into what the rules for the correct usage of an API are. The reason it's taking so long is because even the C people themselves can't seem to figure out what the exact rules of their own APIs are (this work benefits them too).

Who is going to maintain them?

...The RFL maintainers? Was that not obvious?

[amity]

I know some people might grumble at this, but I'm very happy to hear, especially Greg, saying this is the tipping point. I don't have much time for personal coding lately, but Rust is a pleasure to code in, especially for a systems language. Looking forward to even more Rust code!

I've tried getting into it but the syntax is just godawful to me, and if I can't stand to look at it, I cannot code with it. As a C++ developer I am very much looking forward to Swift gaining popularity instead.