One of the world’s most popular programming languages is coming to Linux
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The next version of the Linux kernel will support the popular Rust programming language, it has been confirmed.
As reported by The register (opens in new tab)Linux maker Linus Torvalds has now accepted a pull request that will bring Rust support to the kernel with version 6.1.
The idea is not to rebuild the entire kernel in Rust, but rather to supplement the existing C codebase with new components written in the secondary language, reducing the chance of memory errors leading to security vulnerabilities.
Rust in Linux 6.1
With the release of Linux 6.0 last weekend, eyes will now inevitably turn to the next version. While the last kernel update only contained relatively unsavory changes, the addition of Rust to Linux 6.1 is considered an important addition.
According to a recent questionnaire (opens in new tab) of 70,000 developers by StackOverflow, although Rust is not the most widely used of all languages ββ(that is javascript), it was voted ‘most liked’ by respondents. Incidentally, it is also one of the most lucrative languages ββfor developers, with an average annual salary of nearly $90,000.
The campaign to bring Rust to Linux has been going on for a while and has received support from a range of stakeholders, including Google, which developed Android on top of the Linux platform.
“We believe Rust is now ready to join C as a practical language for implementing the kernel,” said (opens in new tab) Wedson Almeida Filho, a member of the Android team.
“It can help us reduce the number of potential bugs and vulnerabilities in privileged code, while playing well with the core kernel and preserving performance features.”
Until recently, concerns about the need to build non-standard extensions for Rust to make it compatible with Linux were limited. But in the end it was decided that the language is sufficiently well supported in Clang, a compiler frontend for the C language family.
The first merge brings approximately 12,500 lines of Rust code to the kernel, laying the foundation for instance abstracts and Rust-based drivers, which will be introduced with future pull requests.
According to the traditional pattern, Linux 6.1 should go live within the next two to three months.