From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8E1E336E49E for ; Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:51:40 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1771350700; cv=none; b=qsBfe3+KSSCOzzsEj/cobtM6iBp8jAp19S87Z+qWbLheRyGR938MB+ONbZGtkRAv7PjUU0dYIutjzJEMl8twxRCP1W8Cf2el2/U9WVTlVrSQtic1oLzmbfuQdDna5w9VFUKU2QAR7iVQbgAftPQtNKjeQcSS9fGd4CFrwcT/ZB8= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1771350700; c=relaxed/simple; bh=+qsGT0BtHCshLG7vFZATbsw1NgFxAVLhghQojwULgOw=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Date:Message-ID: MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=WP863U9dnQolmebNmL+tBRH1cnpMaUmv2wqBel5lMuNYewsNQBrpXxiAqJemHhnou9v1qLCLNjBp+HCy8wLpbtd7jSP1CS6K2US46deKKVsqWvmzZNskNOe6LiI0RsGknedqGUZoXf9WlfWoS7rl8lrihK+z4l8dF/OMkPNe0bg= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=W/xbXyE6; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="W/xbXyE6" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 0F30CC4CEF7; Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:51:36 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1771350700; bh=+qsGT0BtHCshLG7vFZATbsw1NgFxAVLhghQojwULgOw=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Date:From; b=W/xbXyE6xl5b6g0B85OkVAKLFLS7HoIPmkJToi5dx3so5Q2lAYY6ANgrYcsNLwxSz 6YhQydBG8z99i2DgfrrInqlAzq+yCHWhwzbsqfCi2CuEe7G/eKlEntqy1+0HxlGqU4 lz6+BMC1vDQzFgys2Bav2eFy+V2q2lOrMI5udIx0GFXJkT1VYcR2vsj53p7nTYp5Db hF+iysCfgoNcQR0ENCCKY3cnS+rRRoPFLCMhbHYeoT+dWEB1wXNqTy7czRYdZv6rEz 8R4eOYVX3W+jXsZ3u9a/CT44qb3jMVEouJQMgEasScY4T3sDgRa3yMj6KrcdM/GTc5 iHp6MzRWUbJfQ== From: Andreas Hindborg To: Matthew Wilcox , Daniel Gomez Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org, lsf-pc@lists.linux-foundation.org, Alice Ryhl , Andrew Morton , Daniel Gomez , gost.dev@samsung.com, Greg KH , Julia Lawall , Kairui Song , Luis Chamberlain , Miguel Ojeda , rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org, Tamir Duberstein Subject: Re: [LSF/MM/BPF TOPIC] Evaluating Rust for XArray In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2026 18:51:28 +0100 Message-ID: <87bjhncl7j.fsf@kernel.org> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain "Matthew Wilcox" writes: > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 03:28:45PM +0100, Daniel Gomez wrote: >> We propose a topic to discuss the potential use of Rust in core Linux >> kernel data structures. > > This is premature? We can't move the pagecache or swap over to use Rust > until we can compile Rust for m68k/parisc/alpha/... or we drop those > architectures from the tree. I disagree that this is premature. And I don't think Daniel is suggesting we swap anything over at this time. Doing this work is not the same as swapping anything over. We don't have to wait 5-10 years for gcc to fully support Rust, before we start playing with this. We can, and should, start evaluating if we can deploy Rust in this area now. We might find that we are lacking something from the Rust language to do what we want. We can work with the Rust developers to make sure that the Rust language gets all the bells and whistles that it needs, to support the use cases we have for the Linux kernel. I think this would benefit everyone. Let's get in early and help shape the language, rather than board in 10 years when everything is settled and much more difficult to change. On the other hand, we might also find that no, Rust does not work for this. This would be a valuable outcome as well. At any rate, this is not a call to end support for all architectures that do not support Rust. Rather, this is a call to figure out if we should work harder on getting Rust support for m68k et al. Without doing this exploration, we cannot answer the questions. Best regards, Andreas Hindborg