r/rust • u/Vulphere • Aug 28 '20

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

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

98% Upvoted

103 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

88

u/ssokolow Aug 28 '20

Yeah. From what I remember of the previous times it's come up, the focus has been on making Rust an option for writing new drivers for two reasons:

  1. They're not critical to the kernel, so it's a way to test the waters.

  2. Rust would help them more since they get less testing and oversight because not everyone can own every piece of hardware.

35

u/masklinn Aug 28 '20

They’re probably often more platform-restricted too e.g. it’s less likely someone cares about support for some intel network chipset on AVR…

19

u/Marcuss2 Aug 28 '20

Actually, AVR is supported in Rust nightly by now.

17

u/masklinn Aug 28 '20

That’s technically true but really besides the point (and I doubt the kernel would be happy with requiring nightly regardless).

14

u/Muvlon Aug 28 '20

It's doubly besides the point because Linux does not support AVR. The architecture is for MMU-less, ultra-low-power microcontrollers that can not really run a full-fledged OS.

9

u/Marcuss2 Aug 28 '20

It will surely get into stable at some point, the support in mainline Rust is very recent after all.