Re: [LSF/MM/BPF TOPIC] Evaluating Rust for XArray

[Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 6:51 PM Andreas Hindborg <a.hindborg@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> We can, and should, start evaluating if we
> can deploy Rust in this area now. We might find that we are lacking
> something from the Rust language to do what we want. We can work with
> the Rust developers to make sure that the Rust language gets all the
> bells and whistles that it needs, to support the use cases we have for
> the Linux kernel.

To clarify for others that may not have the context...

We are already working with upstream Rust (and have been for years
now) on improving the Rust language for the Linux kernel. We have
regular meetings with them every two weeks, and have a shared roadmap.

To give a sense of the collaboration status, some major language
features are getting developed with/for/by the Linux kernel and the
kernel is even built in their pre-merge CI.

In terms of discovering features needed, I don't think there will be
big surprises there, given all the work done so far. But if the plan
is to expose a C API, then we may actually find we want new things
from the C language instead! :)

Technically, adding Rust "core" code can be done today, whether for
Rust callers only (which as Tamir says is where a lot of advantages
really show) or for C callers too (where a "native Rust"
implementation can be simpler than dealing with "abstractions" of C
APIs).

So it is all a matter of maintainers being OK with the costs. To me,
this is similar to the "Rust reference drivers" proposal, but for
currently non-configurable parts of the kernel:

    https://rust-for-linux.com/rust-reference-drivers

Cheers,
Miguel