Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#21

Post by devy » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

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

[2]: https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-releases-ubuntu-26-04-l...

[3]: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/carefully-but-purposefully-ox...

[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41355731

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#22

Post by irishcoffee » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:24 PM UTC

What is “un-idiomatic” rust?

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#23

Post by fsckboy » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

Krutonium wrote: post #20

mjhay wrote: post #19

I used to like rust, but I feel like I’m being Pavlovian-conditioned to recoil at its mention now.

I still like it. People are having fun playing with their toy and tool. I have no problem with that.

People are having fun with AI coding, and I have no problem with that, but I am sick of hearing about it.

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#24

Post by mjhay » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

Krutonium wrote: post #20

mjhay wrote: post #19

I used to like rust, but I feel like I’m being Pavlovian-conditioned to recoil at its mention now.

I still like it. People are having fun playing with their toy and tool. I have no problem with that.

I shouldn’t have been so negative. I still very much like Rust, but hearing about these AI rewrites constantly is tiresome.

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#25

Post by icemanx » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

prologic wrote: post #4

I just compared this Rust implementation against the original C sources. Some ~50k SLOC (Rust) compared to maybe ~8-12k SLOC of C (depending on if you count headers). Why is the Rust implementation so much more complex and onerous?

because of AI

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#26

Post by 9dev » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

sudb wrote: post #8

prologic wrote: post #4

I just compared this Rust implementation against the original C sources. Some ~50k SLOC (Rust) compared to maybe ~8-12k SLOC of C (depending on if you count headers). Why is the Rust implementation so much more complex and onerous?

One of the tradeoffs of Rust is its verbosity I think (in return for which Rustaceans would say you gain explicitness).

I absolutely despise that C convention if abbreviating absolutely every single thing as much as possible. Yeah yeah, that was necessary back in the day when memory was scarce and editors were awful, but come on those days were almost half a century ago by now.

Rust may be verbose, but at least you can read it without turning into a cynical greybeard subject matter expert first.

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#27

Post by minimaxir » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

mjhay wrote: post #19

I used to like rust, but I feel like I’m being Pavlovian-conditioned to recoil at its mention now.

Of all the tools in software engineering to be overpopular and overused, Rust is an instance where that is a very good thing.

Atleast people aren't AI rewriting things into PHP.

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#28

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #22

What is “un-idiomatic” rust?

With a project like this, I would expect that "idiomatic Rust" means "attempting to write as much safe code as is reasonably possible" rather than "translating the C to Rust directly".

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#29

Post by ls-a » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

prologic wrote: post #4

I just compared this Rust implementation against the original C sources. Some ~50k SLOC (Rust) compared to maybe ~8-12k SLOC of C (depending on if you count headers). Why is the Rust implementation so much more complex and onerous?

I like how everyone has a different theory as to why

Re: Linux 0.11 rewritten in idiomatic Rust, boots in QEMU

#30

Post by tialaramex » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

sajithdilshan wrote: post #13

xyst wrote: post #9

rewriting {PROGRAM} in rust is so fetch.

Stop trying to make fetch happen

They actually did make fetch happen. Once upon a time it was usual in Javascript to use a thing called XMLHttpRequest which despite its name isn't actually for XML, it's just that XML was a big deal when it was created. The replacement API for making normal HTTP requests is just named fetch, and it was "new" so long ago that popular web browsers had versions like 40 rather than 150.

That movie is so old it's entirely possible that it's just named "fetch" because that's a reasonable thing to call this feature and so it's a coincidence, but I do like to think that at least some people at WHATWG were quoting Mean Girls...