An Empirical Study of Rust-for-Linux: The Success, Dissatisfaction, and Compromise
summary
Study analyzes 6 RFL drivers, hundreds of issues/PRs, thousands of commits and 12K Zulip discussions to evaluate Rust-for-Linux after mainline adoption. Core claim: Rust reduces memory bugs but does not eliminate them because human-written safe abstractions and complex driver logic still require unsafe code; some interfaces took nearly two years to secure. Measured costs include larger binaries, higher latency for certain drivers (E1000), and longer review times; recommends using Rust Belt and Miry plus targeted subsystem selection.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction to Rust-for-Linux
- 1:33Rust background and integration
- 2:18Construction of safety abstractions
- 4:07Empirical study methodology
- 10:05Evaluation of security and performance
- 14:32Development efficiency and lessons
- 19:33Conclusion and Q&A
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