Hi all,
I plan to introduce hard Rust dependencies and Rust code into APT, no earlier than May 2026. This extends at first to the Rust compiler and standard library, and the Sequoia ecosystem.
In particular, our code to parse .deb, .ar, .tar, and the HTTP signature verification code would strongly benefit from memory safe languages and a stronger approach to unit testing.
If you maintain a port without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6 months, or sunset the port.
It’s important for the project as whole to be able to move forward and rely on modern tools and technologies and not be held back by trying to shoehorn modern software on retro computing devices.
Thank you for your understanding.
From the thread:
Rust is already a hard requirement on all Debian release architectures and ports except for alpha, hppa, m68k, and sh4 (which do not provide sqv).
So it looks like this is going to be a much less impactful change than that original one.
Do any of those architectures even still have new CPUs being designed for them in the last decade or so?
Very nice!
There are also rust rewrites for git, tor etc.
What does this mean if I am developing C++ programs or using C++ programs? Or is it just APT architecture?
It sounds to me like the toolchain to build
aptitself, not stuff packaged by it.great, way above my pay grade, don’t have to care, but appreciate the transparency.
