One of the most popular programming languages in the world is now coming to Linux. This is as reports claim that the next version of Linux will be including support for Rust.
One of the Most Popular Programming Languages Is Coming To Linux
It has already been confirmed that the next version of the Linux Kernel will include support for the famous programing language Rust.
Linus Torvalds who is the creator of Linux as per reports by The Register has now accepted a pull request that will be bringing Rust support to the Kernel with version 6.1. the main idea here is to rebuild the entire Kernel in Rust, but however to complement the C codebase that’s already in existence with new components that are written in the secondary language thus helping to cut short the likelihood of memory bugs that will lead to security vulnerabilities.
Rust Is Coming To Linux 6.1
With Linux 6.0 already released in the past week, all eyes will not turn their attention to the next version. And although the latest Kernel update only included relatively unsexy changes, thus the inclusion of Rust to Linux 6.1 is considered a huge addition.
As per a recent survey of 70,000 developers by StackOverflow, although Rust is not the most used of all programming languages, that’s JavaScript, by the way, it is however voted the ‘most loved’ by respondents. Incidentally, it is also among the most lucrative languages for developers thus commanding a median yearly salary of close to $90,000.
Google Helped Push Rust to Linux
The campaign in question to bring Rust to Linux has been going on for some time now and in the process of earning support from a host of stakeholders and this is including Google which helped developed android atop the Linux Platform.
“We feel that Rust is now ready to join C as a practical language for implementing the kernel,” Wedson Almeida Filho, a member of the android team said.
“It can help us reduce the number of potential bugs and security vulnerabilities in privileged code while playing nicely with the core kernel and preserving its performance characteristics.”
Concerns around the need to build non-standard extensions for Rust just until recently in order to make it compatible with Linux have limited progress. It however was decided that the language is sufficiently well supported in Clang which is a compiler front end for the C family languages.
The Initial Merger Brings About 12,500 Lines of Rust Code to the Kernel
The initial merger however brings about 12,500 lines of Rust code to the Kernel laying the groundwork for subsystem abstractions and drivers that are Rust-based to be introduced with future pull requests.
Linux 6.1 should be going live within the next two to three months going by the traditional pattern.
