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Hard Rust requirements from May onward

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Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#31

Post by noosphr »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #27
noosphr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very happy with common lisp for fast code. Of course most people aren't smart enough for the language so they have to use inferior algol languages like rust.

No need to sully CL with this kind of elitism. Any language you need to be a genius to use is a bad language. That's one of the fundamental issues with C. We're all imperfect idiots some of the time and one instance of undefined behavior breaks any guarantees the language gives you.

I find that languages with a high intellectual barrier to entry are much more pleasant places to be since people like the OP can't understand them and we never have people try to bully us into doing things _the right way_.

This is someone who says things like

>It's important for the project as whole to be able to move forward and rely on modern tools and technologies and not be held back by trying to shoehorn modern software on retro computing devices.

While on company time.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#32

Post by Antibabelic »

nikanj wrote: 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

Is it just the "retro-computing hobby"? There could still be businesses who might need support for old machines, especially in developing countries. I don't know the actual situation though, I'm open to the idea that my suggestion is insane.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#33

Post by versteegen »

nikanj wrote: 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

Wow, those are exactly the same targets I use for releasing x86 and x64 (Windows) builds, but even I think it's a little over the top for Debian to support Pentium Pro.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#34

Post by noosphr »

Antibabelic wrote: post #29
noosphr wrote: post #13

I don't get the need for Rust since I happily compile common lisp to machine code when I need fast binaries. But the people who use the language have an amazing talent to make people on the fence hate them within half a dozen sentences. They remind me of Christian missionaries trying to convert the savages from their barbarous religions with human sacrifice to the civilised religion with burning heretics.

Many programmers feel the same way about Lispers. It's best to set aside your gut feelings about the community and think primarily about the technical and organizational merits and disadvantages of the technology.

Yes, but we're not making a push to make everything a bilingual c/lisp code base.

Rust people for some reason are.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#35

Post by tialaramex »

IshKebab wrote: post #19
littlestymaar wrote: post #3

> It's important for the project as whole to be able to > move forward and rely on modern tools and technologies > and not be held back by trying to shoehorn modern software > on retro computing devices. Rust is the present and the future and it's quite logical that it becomes a key requirement in Linux distributions, but I'm really not convinced by the wording here… This last sentence feels needlessly antagonistic.

Feels accurate to me. He's clearly anticipating the "but how will I run Debian on my PDP-11??" naysayers that always try to derail things.

Right. I do have some nostalgia for installing Linux on a brand new PC which had less total RAM than my computer today has cache, but we need to be clear eyed about what makes sense for a maintained piece of software. I also have feelings about steam trains, but burning coal is not a sensible way to power a train in 2025.

A nostalgia-fuelled Linux distro, maybe using a deliberately slimmed down or retro kernel, and chosen software could make a lot more sense than keep trying to squeeze Debian onto hardware that was already obsolete at the turn of the century while also promoting Debian as a viable choice for a brand new laptop.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#36

Post by Ygg2 »

TheChaplain wrote: post #12
CartwheelLinux wrote: post #2

The language is tough love, and I think it's important despite what the first respondent has said. Much of the language used seems to stem from nauseating interactions that have occured in kernel world around rust usage. I'm not a big fan of rust for reasons that were not brought up during the kernel discussions, but I'm also not an opponent of moving forward. I don't quite understand the pushback against memory safe…

[flagged]

Tell me you haven't used Rust without telling me you haven't used Rust.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#37

Post by DaSHacka »

IshKebab wrote: post #19
littlestymaar wrote: post #3

> It's important for the project as whole to be able to > move forward and rely on modern tools and technologies > and not be held back by trying to shoehorn modern software > on retro computing devices. Rust is the present and the future and it's quite logical that it becomes a key requirement in Linux distributions, but I'm really not convinced by the wording here… This last sentence feels needlessly antagonistic.

Feels accurate to me. He's clearly anticipating the "but how will I run Debian on my PDP-11??" naysayers that always try to derail things.

Or those annoying nagging "well, what if I don't have an X86_64 CPU that was made in the last five years?", to which obviously our response should be: "get different hardware LOL, closedwontfix"

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#38

Post by IshKebab »

justinclift wrote: post #6

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?

Those all seem to be completely obsolete so I guess they can just stay on the latest version of Debian that supports them, or make their own distro. (Or add Rust support I guess but that's probably not realistic.)

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#39

Post by mirashii »

Antibabelic wrote: post #32
nikanj wrote: 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

Is it just the "retro-computing hobby"? There could still be businesses who might need support for old machines, especially in developing countries. I don't know the actual situation though, I'm open to the idea that my suggestion is insane.

No, it’s a valid question, and one that I’m sure will get some answers in the coming days and weeks as the discussion on adding this requirement continues, but in some sense, it’s beside the point.

The cost of supporting this old hardware for businesses or hobbyists isn’t free. The parties that feel strongly that new software continue to be released supporting a particular platform have options here, ranging from getting support for those architectures in LLVM and Rust, pushing GCC frontends for rust forward, maintaining their own fork of apt, etc.

Re: Hard Rust requirements from May onward

#40

Post by einpoklum »

That seems like a bad idea to me: Dependencies will be added, for very basic system utilities, on (parts of) a software ecosystem which is still a "moving target", not standardized, and IIANM itself has further dependencies. I wonder whether platform compatibility won't be jeopardized, either.

I would be worried if even C++ dependencies were added for basic system utilities, let alone something like Rust.

Now, granted, I'm not an expert on distro management, bootstrapping etc. so maybe I'm over-reacting, but I am definitely experiencing some fear, uncertainty and doubt here. :-(

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