RUST support for Linux kernel faced Torvald’s criticism

Linus Torvalds held Patches Reviews with the implementation of the ability to create drivers in the RUST language for the Linux kernel and expressed Some critical comments.

The greatest complaints caused the potential to be careful in Panic () in erroneous situations, for example, in a situation of shortage of memory, when the operations of a dynamic memory distribution, including inside the kernel, can end with an error. Torvalds stated that such an approach in the kernel would be fundamentally invalid and with the misunderstanding of this moment it can completely unscrew (totally naked) any code that will try to use a similar approach. On the other hand, the developer engaged in patches, agreed with this problem and considers it solved.

Another problem was attempts to use floating point calculations or 128-bit types, which is not permissible for such environments as Linux kernel. It turned out to be a more serious problem, since the Basic (Core) Library of Rust is indivisible and is one big Blob – it is not possible to request only some of the opportunities, preventing the use of one problematic functionality. The solution to the problem may require changes to the RUST compiler and the library, despite the fact that at the moment the team has no strategy, how to implement the modularity of language libraries.

In addition, Torvalds noted that the driver’s example provided is useless and advised to attach as an example of a driver, solving one of the real problems.

/Media reports.