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Hard Rust requirements from May onward

lists.debian.org

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Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#151
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But op means memory and data safe, without a GC nor a runtime, so it can be used as a systems programming language. For "some reason" people only talk about Rust in this space!

Swift is also memory safe in that sense.

It has a gc in the general sense of that term.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#152
post #75

Wouldn't it make sense to wait for (or support) one of the rust-for-GCC ports to become viable? As far as I understand, rust in the kernel won't become mandatory either until it's supported by GCC, and as a boon, with multiple implementations you can be more certain that the language won't move as fast and break things anymore. There's already upstream rust support in GCC, so I don't reckon it's that far off from bei…

There's already upstream rust support in GCC, so I don't reckon it's that far off from being usable, at least for projects choosing to target it specifically.

The GCCRS project can't even build libcore right now, let alone libstd. In addition, it is currently targeting Rust 1.50's feature set, with some additions that the Linux kernel needs. I don't see it being a useful general purpose compiler for years.

What's more likely is that rustc_codegen_gcc, which I believe can currently build libcore and libstd, will be stabilised first.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#153
post #15

The language is incredibly frank, and I agree with it completely. The retro-computing hobby doesn't need the ability to run contemporary operating systems. It's insane that x86 Debian is still compiling all software targeting Pentium Pro (from 1995!). x64 Debian is a bit more modern, and you must splurge for a CPU from 2005 (Prescott) to get the plethora of features it requires

> It's insane that x86 Debian is still compiling all software targeting Pentium Pro (from 1995!).

Note that Debian no longer supports x86 as of Debian 13.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#154
post #94

I think this is the wrong way to promote rust. For me rust is just a hype. I know nobody that programms or even thinks about rust. I’m from the embedded world an there c is still king. I understand that some will see rust as a good alternative, but as long as the real money is made in c it is not ready

I think about rust, I program in rust. Now you mm know someone who does those things.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#155
post #54

If anyone has a problem with the language used in the email, I would remind you that this is the same person who is maintainer for debian's keepassxc packages. Here's a thread of them insulting upstream developers & users of the Debian packages. https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10725

The HN post doesn't seem very confrontational to me, but some folks see it so, weird.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's true and there's synergies but keep in mind I also have a personal mind

[flagged]

Let me evolve that for you.

You should not only avoid appearance of impropriety, but also impropriety.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#157
Rust is a great language for devs. They love it and how developer centric everything about it is.

But for end users on Debian trying to compile rust stuff is a nightmare. They do breaking changes in the compiler (rustc) every 3 months. This is not a joke or exaggeration. It's entirely inappropriate to use such a rapidly changing language in anything that matters because users on a non-rolling distro, LIKE DEBIAN, will NOT be able to compile software written for it's constantly moving bleeding edge.

This is an anti-user move to ease developer experience. Very par for the course for modern software.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#158
post #54

If anyone has a problem with the language used in the email, I would remind you that this is the same person who is maintainer for debian's keepassxc packages. Here's a thread of them insulting upstream developers & users of the Debian packages. https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10725

Unfortunately, this kind of culture where you joyfully screw over your real users to chase the approval and benefit of some spherical user in a vacuum that you would like to cater to has become endemic in the free software world. It probably started with GNOME 3 (deliberately strip-mined of functionality, actively hostile to customisability, wasteful of screen space, all for the sake of chasing some HCI-prophesied transition to mobile touch devices which never came for desktop Linux), but was perfected by Mozilla in the name of security.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#159
post #54

If anyone has a problem with the language used in the email, I would remind you that this is the same person who is maintainer for debian's keepassxc packages. Here's a thread of them insulting upstream developers & users of the Debian packages. https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10725

What a horrible mindset. I'll never understand this "security" argument. It is our responsibility to our users to provide them the most secure option possible as the default. Removing features is not the most secure option possible. Go all the way then and remove everything. Only when your computer cannot do anything it will be 100% secure.

> Removing features is not the most secure option possible.

If I have a program that encrypts and decrypts passwords, then the surface area is way smaller than if it also has browser integrations and a bunch of other features. Every feature has the potential to make this list longer: https://keepass.info/help/kb/sec_issues.html which applies to any other piece of software.

At the same time, people can make the argument that software that's secure but has no useful features also isn't very worthwhile. From that whole discussion, the idea of having a minimal package and a full package makes a lot of sense - I'd use the minimal version because I don't use that additional functionality, but someone else might benefit a bunch from the full version.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#160

One of the follow up messages is interesting: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288.html > Rust is already a hard requirement on all Debian release architectures and ports except for alpha, hppa, m68k, and sh4 (which do not provide sqv). Wonder what this means for those architectures then?

m68k has a LLVM port already, so Rust can be implemented for that platform.[0] It would be nice to have LLVM backends for alpha, hppa and sh4 - these older architectures tend to be quite simple so a working LLVM has plenty of value as a reference and for educational use. (LLVM even used to have an in-tree DEC Alpha backend, though that was back in 2011 and not relevant to any version of Rust.) [0] Looks like there is…

As far as I understand it, the m68k LLVM port is not ABI-compatible with GCC on Linux because the alignment is wrong: https://wiki.debian.org/M68k/Alignment (page says that the LLVM packages are FTBFS because of this)
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