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I think this is a bad idea or at least far too soon. In my opinion the Rust language and eco system is not yet at the stability of C. I feel certain that mix

I think this is a bad idea or at least far too soon. In my opinion the Rust language and eco system is not yet at the stability of C. I feel certain that mixing two different languages inside the kernel will give all new and challenging errors to debug. Also it is the fallacy of sunken cost. So much work has gone into the Linux kernel, but efforts should be made to replace it. What I would like to see is a project to create a new and modern kernel, taking a lot of what has been learned by the "prototype" Linux kernel and create something new and better. It would also be free to take full advantage of the language improvements between Rust and C. Sure it would take a lot of time, but I think it is time well invested, instead of slowing trying to port the current Linux kernel to Rust.

mijoharas 4y ago
> So much work has gone into the Linux kernel, but efforts should be made to replace it. Plenty of people are working on new kernels and operating systems both by hobbyists and companies (c.f. Redox[0], Fuscia (zircon kernel[1], e.t.c.). The main problem is that linux is an incredibly well developed piece of software, so it will take a very long time for anything to reach feature parity. > instead of slowing trying to port the current Linux kernel to Rust. I don't think anyone is suggesting to try and port the current kernel to Rust (and I'm fairly sure any suggestions in that direction would be met with a hard no from linus.) The current suggestion is just to allow language bindings to facilitate the writing of drivers in rust. Even looking to the future which could see some critical components of the kernel written in rust, I don't think anyone is suggesting that the entire kernel should be ported, since that's a monumental task (and suffers from the exact same issue as above, for questionable benefit). [0] https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/ [1] https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel

mijoharas 4y ago

> So much work has gone into the Linux kernel, but efforts should be made to replace it. Plenty of people are working on new kernels and operating systems both by hobbyists and companies (c.f. Redox[0], Fuscia (zircon kernel[1], e.t.c.). The main problem is that linux is an incredibly well developed piece of software, so it will take a very long time for anything to reach feature parity. > instead of slowing trying to port the current Linux kernel to Rust. I don't think anyone is suggesting to try and port the current kernel to Rust (and I'm fairly sure any suggestions in that direction would be met with a hard no from linus.) The current suggestion is just to allow language bindings to facilitate the writing of drivers in rust. Even looking to the future which could see some critical components of the kernel written in rust, I don't think anyone is suggesting that the entire kernel should be ported, since that's a monumental task (and suffers from the exact same issue as above, for questionable benefit). [0] https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/ [1] https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel