Microsoft Engineer Sends Rust Linux Kernel Patches For In-Place Module Initialization (phoronix.com) 49
"What a time we live in," writes Phoronix, "where Microsoft not only continues contributing significantly to the Linux kernel but doing so to further flesh out the design of the Linux kernel's Rust programming language support..."
Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho has sent out the latest patches working on Allocation APIs for the Rust Linux kernel code and also in leveraging those proposed APIs [as] a means of allowing in-place module initialization for Rust kernel modules. Wedson Almeida Filho has been a longtime Rust for Linux contributor going back to his Google engineering days and at Microsoft the past two years has shown no signs of slowing down on the Rust for Linux activities...
The Rust for Linux kernel effort remains a very vibrant effort with a wide variety of organizations contributing, even Microsoft engineers.
The Rust for Linux kernel effort remains a very vibrant effort with a wide variety of organizations contributing, even Microsoft engineers.
We should be sending Microsoft (Score:1)
our code, any shitty code to them, even when they ask us to stop.
Re: We should be sending Microsoft (Score:1)
We already are.
Where do you think Windows' code came from in the first place?
They've contributed to Linux world for years (Score:3)
It's nice that they do but it shouldn't be some big pikachu shock article moment any more.
Re:They've contributed to Linux world for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Four things have been clear for a few years now:
1. Linux is not a serious threat on the desktop.
2. Linux is very important to the success of Azure.
3. Azure is a big cash cow for Microsoft.
4. Linux is big in the web server world.
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2-4 are all true but I'm told this is definitely The Year Of Linux On The Desktop!
I'll drop by your place later with a 6 pack in my flying fusion powered car and bring my personal jet pack for you to try out.
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Reinventing thin clients as web interfaces began after the Halloween Memo [wikipedia.org]. Coincidence? I think not.
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As long as Lennart Poettering doesn't get anywhere near that company.
About that [slashdot.org]
C++ developers (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to strike first this time. C++ developers end up being over twice as productive when they switch to rust:
https://youtu.be/6mZRWFQRvmw?t... [youtu.be]
Also when golang developers switch to rust, they remain just as productive, only their rust code has a lower defect rate, and uses less memory.
Amazon also did a study where they found that rust code is as energy efficient as C code, making it 30% more energy efficient than C++ and three times as energy efficient as golang.
Come on, tell me how much you hate me C++ devs, you know you want to...bring in the hate...
Re: C++ developers (Score:4, Informative)
Only the part I linked plus the next 15 minutes or so are important, you can ignore the rest.
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I'm a 25+ years of experience C++ programmer, and Rust is great. Entrenchment will mean C++ will be around in meaningful amounts for awhile, but I have no qualms about Rust increasingly eating its lunch.
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First 10 years were great, then they turned into something incomprehensible.
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Pre- C++ 11 wasn't that great anyway. C++ 11 brought interesting new ideas, but the language became too complex and bloated. Bjarne should have dropped backward compatibility, streamlined the language while emphasizing the new features, and called the resulting language C+++ to avoid confusion. Instead, we have the mess that is today's C++, almost as bad as Algol 68.
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At this point it looks like Google and Microsoft are going all-in on Rust. I think Amazon is as well as they've been publicly making a strong case for it.
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I don't work in either language, so I don't have a dog in this fight. But solely referring to a YouTube video to back up your statements instead of some actual documentation seems... sub-optimal, if you actually intended for your point to be taken seriously.
Re: C++ developers (Score:3, Interesting)
They never do anyways, so what difference does it make? I've even provided actual code examples in both C++ and rust to prove every point I've made about the deficiencies of C++, and every time I do they either stop replying or try to divert the conversation, only to repeat the same bullshit a few weeks later.
Typically they start in with stuff about rust that I quickly disprove, but today I just decided...fuck it, why not fire the first shot this time? Change things up a bit for entertainment.
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So there's one of you, now we just need The Evil Analinguist and Angle of Sphere, and then you'll have your quorum. I'm curious, when you combine the worst of the worst developers of slashdot, what happens when they collaborate? Will they divide by zero? Will they create the slowest program ever made? Or will they crash AWS? Let's find out!
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there are plenty of people put off by Rust's lack of a standard and excessive hype while language hasn't matured yet.
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I'm a C++ dev who does not care much about Rust but am not opposed to it either. I'm certainly not going to switch to Rust, but if some big C++-based dev shops want to move half of their projects to Rust and report in a few years how it compares AND if it turns out it went well, I'll take a look.
That said, with Woke Gemini telling a user a C++ feature is too dangerous for him because he's too young and a clueless bureaucrat in the Biden admin recommending C++ devs to move to Rust, I don't think the language
Re: C++ developers (Score:5, Funny)
Still one of my favorite gag articles:
https://www.ganssle.com/tem/te... [ganssle.com]
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The big productivity boost from Rust is from the Cargo ecosystem, which makes it easy to import third-party code.
That's great if you trust other people's code, and your organization is ok with that.
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It helps, sure, but there's actually a much bigger reason. Note the parts where he talks about adding an enum variant, std::move() and software reviews. In other words, Rust is a hell of a lot easier to maintain, and a hell of a lot less prone to breaking things in quite spectacular ways when updating older code. This all comes down to the way rust puts a huge emphasis on correctness, and things like derive macros with field attributes (even in "safe" object oriented languages like java and c#, inheritance
Oblig... (Score:3)
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Re: Oblig... (Score:2)
Embrace, Extend, Einclude in the pay as you go Azure service catalog :)
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They're waiting for Linus to retire, and then will make their move.
Windows is Linuxifying (Score:2)
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That's nice and all but any chance Microsoft could just completely take systemd back?
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Yeah, the standout for me is Microsoft implementing a Mesa shim for the OpenGL graphics stack on top of Direct3D for WSL-G. Meanwhile, Wine devs have been reverse engineering Direct3D to run on top of the Linux stack.
A lot of wasted effort when both parties could pool their resources to implement access to these APIs on top of Vulkan. With the many eyes theory, drivers from the major vendors might improve if there were a single implementation across Windows, Android and other assorted *nixes.
But MS need to
Re: Windows is Linuxifying (Score:3)
Is that when they start contributing to WINE?
Big problem with Rust (Score:2)
As a developer, you buy a new supercomputer to see those .c files just fly on the screen when compiling. Then you hit a few Rust files and it slows down to 1/sec...
unwise (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't be allowing language in kernel that doesn't have a standard.
But with systemd we've already proven good engineering in Linux is going down the toilet
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Shouldn't be allowing language in kernel that doesn't have a standard.
Even before Rust, the kernel wasn't written to ISO C, but to GNU C (there's plenty of quotes from Linus to that effect).
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Not even GNU C, the kernel is written in kernel C and C compilers have to be adapted to be able to compile it correctly.
GCC and Clang are the only compilers that work. There used to be support for icc as well, but compiler-specific tweaks are required for every compiler, and it was not worth the effort.
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-std=gnu11
recognize that?
The point is Rust is still very mutable and in flux.
Bad choice for a kernel
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But "living standards" are hot right now! Why not bring the stability and robustness of web development practices into operating system kernels?
Seriously, I tried messing with Rust a while ago, and just getting the environment up and running was a nightmare. It's not just a language, it's an entire ecosystem, and with that comes shitloads of politics. No wonder people are pushing it with such religious fervor.
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systemd is not in kernel, and neither is it a mandatory element in a complete Linux ecosystem.
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major changes to linux kernel were made to accommodate systemd
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