Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Redox OS - an OS built entirely out of Rust (www.redox-os.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This isn't Linux, but Linux-like. Its a microkernel built from the rust programming language. Its still experimental, but I think it has great potential. It has a GUI desktop, but the compiler isn't quite fully working yet.

Has anyone used this before? What was your experience with it?

Note: If this is inappropriate since this isn't technically Linux, mods please take down.

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[–] nous 3 points 1 year ago

I am not sure that is quite right. I dont think rust support just enabling dynamic linking of its dependencies. It can talk to dynamically linked libraries - which is how FFI works. And you can compile rust crates to be dynamically linked. But when you are going down this route you are talking over the C ABI. This requires some effort on the code author to make their APIs exportable to C types and means you lose all safety when talking over the C ABI.

I also dont think that rust inlines across a crate boundary unless the function is marked as inline or LTO is enabled - inlining across crate boundaries is expensive and so only done when explicitly needed or asked for it. It is more that you lose features like generics and traits and other things that are not supported over the C API.