Google’s Linux challenger just got a hugely useful update

Rust patches seem to have been well received

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TheRust for Linux initiativemade significant progress after lead developer Miguel Ojeda sent in a revised set of patches to shore up support for addingRustas a secondary programming language within theLinuxkernel.

Ojeda has been spearheading the initiative and his work isnow sponsored by Google, who along with a large section of developers, are pushing for Rust to be used in the Linux kernel, especially in areas where security and memory safety are of utmost importance.

The set of 17 patches lay the groundwork for the initiative with important components such as a beta Rust compiler, an example driver, and more.

“There have been several major improvements to the overall Rust support,”notes Ojedawhile running through the patches which, put together, amount to over 33000 lines of code.

Well begun

The latest round of patches follows the request for comments (RFC) Ojeda sent in April,  detailing the advantages of adding Rust code to the mainline kernel.

“Like it was mentioned in the RFC, the Rust support is still to be considered experimental. However, as noted back in April, support is good enough that kernel developers can start working on the Rust abstractions for subsystems and write drivers and other modules,” wrote Ojeda, while submitting the latest changes.

In their analysis of Ojeda’s patches,The Registernotesthat theArm32-bit and RISC-V architectures are also now supported by the Rust for Linux.

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Also, based on the discussions on the kernel mailing list, Linus Torvalds hasn’t yet voiced any significant objections to Ojeda’s work. However, asPhoronixpoints outthat while the 5.14 kernel merge window is currently open, Ojeda’s patches weren’t labeled as a pull request and will presumably not land until a later cycle.

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.

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