Rust compiler support works differently

Posted Dec 15, 2025 17:44 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Rust compiler support works differently by khim
Parent article: The state of the kernel Rust experiment

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.