Linus Torvalds: Rust For The Kernel Could Possibly Be Merged For Linux 5.20

Speaking this morning at The Linux Foundation's Open-Source Summit, Linus Torvalds talked up the possibilities of Rust within the Linux kernel and that it could be landing quite soon -- possibly even for the next kernel cycle.

Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel had their usual Open-Source Summit keynote/chat where Linus commented on Rust programming language code within the kernel.

Torvalds commented that real soon they expect to have the Rust infrastructure merged within the kernel, possibly even for the next release -- meaning Linux 5.20.

There hasn't yet been any Rust for Linux pull request sent in or merged yet, but things have begun settling down in the initial Rust enablement code for the kernel with the basic infrastructure, a few basic sample drivers, etc.

Last month saw the most recent Rust Linux kernel patches posted that got more functionality into shape and additional reviews completed. As noted plenty of times before, this Rust support within the Linux kernel will remain optional when building the kernel depending upon whether you want the support or any of the kernel features to be implemented just in Rust code.

The Linux 5.20 merge window will open following the release of Linux 5.19 stable around the end of July, so at that point we'll see if the Rust PR is submitted and lands for this next kernel version. It wouldn't be too surprising with how things have been pacing and already having the blessing of Linus.

Linux 5.20 is already shaping up to be exciting with a few performance optimizations already worth noting, new hardware support, more AMD enablement work, RDNA3 hopefully being in good shape for that kernel version, possibly seeing MGLRU mainlined, and other features expected.

The Open-Source Summit runs today through Friday in Austin, Texas as well as virtually.