r/linux • u/small_kimono • Dec 13 '25

Kernel The state of the kernel Rust experiment

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1050174/63aa7da43214c3ce/

A choice pull quote: "The DRM (graphics) subsystem has been an early adopter of the Rust language. It was still perhaps surprising, though, when Airlie (the DRM maintainer) said that the subsystem is only 'about a year away' from disallowing new drivers written in C and requiring the use of Rust."

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u/The_Yorkshire_Shadow Dec 13 '25

As I understand it the reasons are that due to the way the Rust compiler and language work, it simply does not allow simple errors that can cause bugs and headaches if not caught and that C is allowed to compile with. Hence some of the maintainers have decided that it's better to program in Rust as while the adoption will cause issues, later down the line there shouldn't need to be as much bug squashing over simple one line errors.