Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Rust in Linux lead retires rather than deal with more “nontechnical nonsense” (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago by tux0r@feddit.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml

205 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Linux people doing Linux things, it seems.

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As one of the other quotes suggested: fork the kernel project and rewrite it entirely in Rust

That's not practically possible given the scale of the kernel. And doing a total rewrite is almost always a recipe for getting stuck and, if you ever create anything, creating something worse.

Replacing C with Rust in the upstream kernel is akin to replacing the engine in a car while it's running or being used every day.

Almost all real-world software development is like this. That's what we do.

[–] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah it is a monumental task, but it's also the one with the least push back. I don't mean start from scratch, but convert the C code to Rust in a dev branch or something and release a Linux-Rust kernel image.

Almost all real-world software development is like this. That's what we do.

I'm aware, I've written my own software even though I'm a SysEng, all I'm saying is that it's not an easy process with a potential for disaster. Just look at CrowdStrike (not saying that they were attempting to switch languages but just the scale of the fuck up and the fallout that it caused), we don't want that to happen with Linux.