6 ms·

Docs full of emojis, this is another AI slop?! Tangential note: there is already a community effort[1] to rewrite GNU commandline tools into Rust and Canonical

by devy 2mo ago

Docs full of emojis, this is another AI slop?! Tangential note: there is already a community effort[1] to rewrite GNU commandline tools into Rust and Canonical shipped the rust version of the /bin/utils in Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon by default[2] in their "oxidizing" initiative.[3] PS: Linus Torvalds has confirmed that the existing Linux kernel will never be fully rewritten in Rust.[4] Let's see how well that statement age. [1]: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils https://github.com/uutils/coreutils [2]: https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-releases-ubuntu-26-04-lts-resolute-raccoon https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-releases-ubuntu-26-04-l... [3]: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/carefully-but-purposefully-oxidising-ubuntu/56995 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/carefully-but-purposefully-ox... [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41355731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41355731

lioeters 2mo ago
As soon as Linus retires, there will be an initiative to rewrite the Linux kernel in Rust assisted by LLMs. Either that, or some company will fund a fork before that. Imagine, man pages full of emojis!
- steveklabnik 2mo ago
  Linus is supportive of Rust and uses LLMs. The reasons to not have a full-Rust Linux kernel are over more important, real engineering things. (Platform support being the big one.)
  - xedrac 2mo ago
    Since the Rust support in the kernel is not optional, it already has an impact on platform support, no? Or maybe they are using the gnu toolchain to avoid that?
    - JoshTriplett 2mo ago
      Rust support in the kernel is still optional; it's currently only allowed in drivers, and drivers only use Rust if they can accept running only on current Rust targets (which is not a substantive limitation). I expect Rust to eventually get used in the core kernel, or in drivers that everyone wants to use (e.g. some new bus or device on most new hardware), but I expect that by the time that happens the set of targets supported by the kernel and the set of targets supported by Rust (including through things like crustc and codegen_gcc) will have converged sufficiently.
  - lioeters 2mo ago
    [dead]
  - JoshTriplett 2mo ago
    > Platform support being the big one. And between rustc_codegen_gcc, projects like https://github.com/FractalFir/crustc https://github.com/FractalFir/crustc, the ongoing addition of backends to LLVM and Rust, and the eventual removal of obsolete targets as hardware goes away, that's less and less of a problem.
    - steveklabnik 2mo ago
      I certainly don't think it'll be a barrier forever, for sure.

by devy 2mo ago

lioeters 2mo ago

As soon as Linus retires, there will be an initiative to rewrite the Linux kernel in Rust assisted by LLMs. Either that, or some company will fund a fork before that. Imagine, man pages full of emojis!

steveklabnik 2mo ago
Linus is supportive of Rust and uses LLMs. The reasons to not have a full-Rust Linux kernel are over more important, real engineering things. (Platform support being the big one.)
- xedrac 2mo ago
  Since the Rust support in the kernel is not optional, it already has an impact on platform support, no? Or maybe they are using the gnu toolchain to avoid that?
  - JoshTriplett 2mo ago
    Rust support in the kernel is still optional; it's currently only allowed in drivers, and drivers only use Rust if they can accept running only on current Rust targets (which is not a substantive limitation). I expect Rust to eventually get used in the core kernel, or in drivers that everyone wants to use (e.g. some new bus or device on most new hardware), but I expect that by the time that happens the set of targets supported by the kernel and the set of targets supported by Rust (including through things like crustc and codegen_gcc) will have converged sufficiently.
- lioeters 2mo ago
  [dead]
- JoshTriplett 2mo ago
  > Platform support being the big one. And between rustc_codegen_gcc, projects like https://github.com/FractalFir/crustc https://github.com/FractalFir/crustc, the ongoing addition of backends to LLVM and Rust, and the eventual removal of obsolete targets as hardware goes away, that's less and less of a problem.
  - steveklabnik 2mo ago
    I certainly don't think it'll be a barrier forever, for sure.