Google Supports Getting Rust Into The Linux Kernel

Written by Michael Larabel in Google on 15 April 2021 at 06:12 AM EDT. 50 Comments
GOOGLE
It should come as little surprise -- especially given the recent news of Google allowing Rust to be used for Android system-level code -- but engineers at the search giant are in support of Rust code being used within the mainline Linux kernel.

In addition to yesterday's Rust RFC for the Linux kernel and that discussion still taking place on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Google engineers on the Google Security Blog have penned their own piece on the matter.

"We feel that Rust is now ready to join C as a practical language for implementing the kernel. It can help us reduce the number of potential bugs and security vulnerabilities in privileged code while playing nicely with the core kernel and preserving its performance characteristics," the blog post noted.

The blog post goes on to detail a Rust sample driver for the kernel, talking about their work on prototyping Binder in Rust, and more.

"This is an exciting time and a rare opportunity to potentially influence how the Linux kernel is developed, as well as inform the evolution of the Rust language," read more on the Google Security Blog.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week