The Linux Kernel Begins Preparing For Rust 1.78 Upgrade

Following the recent upgrade to Rust 1.77, the Linux kernel Rust code is preparing to move to Rust 1.78 that will be released as stable in about one month.

Rust 1.78 isn't due for release until the start of May while already the Rust Linux kernel developers led by Miguel Ojeda are preparing for this next upgrade. With the shift to Rust 1.78, it's the first time they are not needing the "alloc" forked code and also clears the way for the Rust Allocation APIs for the Linux kernel and in turn other features down the pipe like in-place module initialization.

The Rust 1.78 upgrade patches make the upgrade and then just drop some redundant imports and implementing "Default" for the LockClassKey as compatibility changes.

Rust 1.78 is adding the features "feature(asm_goto)", support for mutable pointers to Rust statics, checking all unsafe pre-conditions when debug assertions are enabled, and more. More details on the Rust 1.78 changes in general can be found via releases.rs.

The Rust 1.78 release should occur around 2 May and allow time for this kernel code upgrade to happen for the next kernel cycle, Linux 6.10 with its merge window later in May.