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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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It's a better, more modern language in general. It has way better tooling (better, more user friendly compiler, better package manager), really good set of modern features (null-safety, good error handling, type-classes, algebraic types), it's easier to modularize your code (workspaces, modules). Rust does a lot of things right and is fun to work with. That's why it's the most liked language overall. It's not hype, it really is that good. It will just make working on the kernel easier. And on top of that it offers some memory safety and concurrency features.
P.S. I forgot about amazing documentation. Again, way better then what you can find for C.
P.P.S Zero cost abstractions.
The "tooling" argument is kind of backwards when we're in the kernel. The package manager is not allowed to be used. Even the standard library is not allowed to be used. Writing code free of the standard library is kind of new in the Rust world and getting compiler support for it has been one of the major efforts to get Rust into the kernel. Needless to say tools around no-stdlib isn't as robust as in the user world.
Not true, you can use cargo to build Linux drivers: https://github.com/not-matthias/kernel-driver-with-rust/blob/master/Cargo.toml
That link appears to be for a Windows driver.
Ups, you're right. Still, better tooling attracts more devs to a language increasing the number or people that in the future may work on the kernel and in the future it could be possible to build Linux drivers using cargo. So yeah, today it's not that important but it still a benefit.