Rust compiler support works differently

Posted Dec 15, 2025 17:30 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Rust compiler support works differently by farnz
Parent article: The state of the kernel Rust experiment

> No: the reason stable distros do that is to minimize the chance that a new bug is added.

But why that reasoning is not stopping them from bringing new code, that may need new version of compiler into the picture?

That is what driving people mad: old, stable, code is fine, I tinker with old hardware and software regularly… but then you use old tools to deal with it, too!

Why try to mix old compiler and new Linux kernel? This really makes no sense to me!

to post comments

Rust compiler support works differently

Posted Dec 15, 2025 17:44 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

The distro doesn't bring new code that needs new versions of the compiler into the picture - it locks down kernel version as well as everything else when it releases.

The kernel, however, wants people who find bugs in the distro kernel to be able to test the latest kernel, with possible fixes (and even patches on top of Linus's latest release), rather than forcing them to wait until the next distro release. And that's what drives keeping old compiler versions for the kernel - not the distros, but the kernel developers wanting to build on distros with older versions of compilers etc.