cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25857381

Hellwig is the maintainer of the DMA subsystem. Hellwig previously blocked rust bindings for DMA code, which in part resulted in Hector Martin from stepping down as a kernel maintainer and eventually Asahi Linux as a whole.

  • SemperverusEnglish
    -1•1 day ago

    Rust is great, but you are not thinking from a long-term project perspective. Rust is safer, but Linux needs to be maintainable or it dies.

    Based on what you’re saying, the only way its going to reasonably be converted to Rust is if someone forks Linux and matches all the changes they’re making in C as they happen but converts it all to Rust. Once its all converted and maintainability has been proven, a merge request would need to be made.

    • @LeFantome@programming.dev
      11•1 day ago

      That is not how it will happen, if it ever fully converts at all.

      Rust will first be added in a way that allows it to run on top of existing C code. That is what we are seeing here with Rust being used to write drivers.

      As sub-systems get overhauled and replaced, sometimes Rust will be chosen as the language to do that. In these cases, a sub-system or module will be written in Rust and both C code and Rust code will use it (call into it).

      The above is how the Linux kernel may migrate to Rust (or mostly Rust) over time.

      As devs get more comfortable, there may be some areas of the kernel that mix C and Rust. This is likely to be less common and is probably the most difficult to maintain.

      Nobody wants to rewrite working, solid kernel modules in Rust though. So, it seems very likely that the kernel will remain mostly C for a long, long time. There are no doubt a few areas though where Rust will really shine

      No need for a fork or a rewrite.