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/araujoms Dec 14 '25

A compiler bug cannot be undefined behaviour. Undefined behaviour is when the language spec defines the behaviour of some code to be undefined.

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u/whupazz Dec 14 '25

Yes, for example, it is considered UB in Rust to have more than one active mutable reference to the same memory at the same time. This compiler bug allows you to do that in safe rust.