“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
I’m not a software dev, but I’d imagine that the codebase could definitely be reduced once most things are converted to Rust. From what I’ve heard, the kernel is a huge mess of spaghetti code that most people don’t want to touch, for the fear of going insane in the process 😂
I’m not a software dev (I’m a SysEng), and have never touched Rust (I’ve looked at the Rust source code and it scares me haha), but I know a fair amount of Go, and even the Go compiler is a pain in the ass occasionally. I’ve “mother fucked” it so many times.
I agree. C isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but if we don’t start modernizing the kernel now we could end up with a future like the US government is in where all critical systems run on COBOL code and no one wants to touch it for the fear of breaking everything.
I’m not sure if it was in my above post or not, but the article said we should start modernizing the kernel now before someone does to Linux what Linux did to Unix.
Redox OS already exists and is functional (meaning it boots and has a GUI, but it’s lacking in various aspects), from what I understand it’s pretty much Linux/Unix rewritten entirely in Rust and looks pretty promising. In 5 or so years it could be a competitor with BSD and then overtake Linux once it has a proven track record.
Yeah it is a monumental task, but it’s also the one with the least push back. I don’t mean start from scratch, but convert the C code to Rust in a dev branch or something and release a Linux-Rust kernel image.
Almost all real-world software development is like this. That’s what we do.
I’m aware, I’ve written my own software even though I’m a SysEng, all I’m saying is that it’s not an easy process with a potential for disaster. Just look at CrowdStrike (not saying that they were attempting to switch languages but just the scale of the fuck up and the fallout that it caused), we don’t want that to happen with Linux.
I’m not rejecting it, I’m just saying that it’s very difficult to completely change the code of a critical piece of software. The long-term goal is for Rust to overtake C in the kernel (from what I understand, I’m a System Engineer, not a software dev. I know Go, not Rust) due it being memory-safe and about 30 years newer. Critical code gets left untouched (a lot of the time) because no one wants to be the one that breaks shit (and get bitched out by Linus 😂) so I’m sure there is tons of code from the early 90s that could be made better with a newer language like Rust, but it’s not as mature as C right now so that’s not going to happen for a while, if at all.
Ah, but I still agree with the C devs, it creates unnecessary headaches for them. Also, old habits die hard.
I view it as the same way ZFS is supported: Linus and Greg KH are like “you can maintain it, but we don’t give a shit about it, and if what we do breaks ZFS support, well too bad.”
part of the problem is that old-time kernel developers are used to C and don’t know Rust," Torvalds said. “They’re not exactly excited about having to learn a new language that is, in some respects, very different. So there’s been some pushback on Rust.”
Linus hit the nail on the head. If you’ve been a Kernel dev for a decade or more, and have spent decades learning the ins and outs of C, why would you want to switch to something that is similar, but different in a lot of ways, just because a small subset of devs think it’s the best way forward? Let them handle Rust and the majority of devs will keep using C, even though Rust is objectively better.
As one of the other quotes suggested: fork the kernel project and rewrite it entirely in Rust, that way there isn’t any push back from the C devs. Replacing C with Rust in the upstream kernel is akin to replacing the engine in a car while it’s running or being used every day.
This is actually making me cackle uncontrollably while friends are trying to figure out the specifics of a board game 🤣
How can mods ban an admin?
“we taught a lion to eat tofu!”
I remember downloading the scene on American Pie where Shannon Elizabeth strips naked over our 33.6 link and it took like an hour, at an amazing resolution of like 240p for a two minute clip 😂
How long did that take? A month or two? I’ve backfilled my NAS with about 40 TB before over a 1 gig fiber pipe in about a week or so of 24/7 downloading.
I’m currently in the process of transferring about 50 TB from one zpool to another (locally), so I can destroy and recreate it.
I’ve downloaded a few torrents that were around 5 TB each, they’re PS4 and Xbox 360 game collections.
This is why I love the FOSS community.
Nice, thanks I’ll give it a try again because Windows 10 is really pissing me off regarding how practically anything that you used to be able to easily disable now requires one or multiple registry hacks that may or may not work anymore.
I totally understand you not giving all that a try because while it is a handheld Linux PC, it’s probably more of a pain in the ass to use on that screen and with the standard input (obviously docking it would solve these issues) than it’s worth. I just keep Windows on my Desktop to play a few games, my home server is my workhorse and I have a Linux laptop that work gave me (literally, they laid me off and never asked for it back).
Yeah, these results are skewed because it’s only desktop Linux, so mobile devices (which I believe the Steam Deck and other portable PCs/gaming devices fall under) aren’t counted, and those primarily run Linux. It seems that the foothold of Linux never was, and probably never will be, the desktop PC.
The only real reason to switch to another distro nowadays is because you want to get updates faster (rolling release [like Arch] vs steady releases) and/or you want the ability to customize the OS more easily. Also, if you wanna be that person that wants to remove SystemD from Linux or have a version controlled OS.
Even though I do hate Apple as a company, they do make great products, they just charge out the ass for them
I literally woke up at 11 am, saw the results and poured myself a glass of whiskey (I’m currently unemployed). Now I’m going to buy some weed.