Should the Linux Kernel Accept Drivers Written In Rust?

mood · Sep 1, 2019

Should the Linux Kernel Accept Drivers Written In Rust?

https://lwn.net/Articles/797714/
A good start would be to make it possible to write some kinds of drivers in Rust. This would already be quite a lot of work --- integrating Rust into the Linux build system, writing Rust wrappers around kernel APIs --- but much has already done experimentally. There's a good chance that encouraging people to submit their wacky drivers in Rust would improve the quality of the driver, partly because you can focus attention on the unsafe parts (if any ... many Linux drivers probably don't need much or any unsafe code).

https://lwn.net/Articles/797828/
I have, yes. I spoke with Greg Kroah-Hartman, and he said he'd be willing to accept a framework in the kernel for writing drivers in Rust, as long as 1) for now it wasn't enabled by default (even if you did "make allyesconfig") so that people don't *need* Rust to build the kernel, and 2) it shows real benefits beyond writing C, such as safe wrappers for kernel APIs.

I'd be happy to talk with someone interested in writing such a framework.
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“Rust is the future of systems programming, C is the new Assembly”: Intel principal engineer, Josh Triplett

mood · Sep 1, 2020

Linux Developers Continue Evaluating The Path To Adding Rust Code To The Kernel
August 27, 2020
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Kernel-Rust-Path-LPC2020

As mentioned back in July, upstream Linux developers have been working to figure out a path for adding Rust code to the Linux kernel. That topic is now being further explored at this week's virtual Linux Plumbers Conference and it's still looking like it will happen, it's just a matter of when the initial infrastructure will be in place and how slowly the rollout will be.

Back in July, Linus Torvalds shared his thoughts on Rust within the Linux kernel tree and didn't shoot down the idea just his preference on how it be handled, basically having it be enabled if Rust is present on the system.
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Nothing firm has been determined yet but it's a topic that is still being discussed at the virtual LPC this week and surely over the weeks/months ahead on the kernel mailing list.
There is Rust-For-Linux on GitHub with a prototype kernel module implementation. There is also the PDF slides from today's talk on the matter.
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Linux Plumbers Conference 2020 - LLVM MC: "Barriers to in-tree Rust"
(PDF - 378 KB): https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/7/contributions/804/attachments/641/1168/barriers-to-in-tree-rust.pdf

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Should the Linux Kernel Accept Drivers Written In Rust?

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