Redox - Your Next(Gen) OS - Redox - Your Next(Gen) OS
www.redox-os.org
The Redox official website

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.

  • weclaw@lemm.ee
    913·
    11 months ago

    From my personal experience I can tell you 2 reasons. The first is that this is the first general purpose language that can be used for all projects. You can use it on the web browser with web assembly, it is good for backend and it also is low level enough to use it for OS development and embedded. Other languages are good only for some thing and really bad for others. The second reason is that it is designed around catching errors at compile time. The error handling and strict typing forces the developer to handle errors. I have to spend more time creating the program but considerably less time finding and fixing bugs.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
      251·
      11 months ago

      That sounds pretty great. I get sick of having to switch gears for every layer. As a hobbyist it is tough to remember five or six languages well enough when only coding something a few times a year.

      Since I do embedded, scripting, web front and back end this is sure tempting.

      I have been hesitant to try to learn yet another language (this would make…ummm… idk I lost count ages ago). But with all the hype I may break down and give it a whirl.

      • YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee
        96·
        11 months ago

        Sounds like python may be a better fit if its supported on the embedded devices you use as it will cover scripting and backend too. Rust has quite a learning curve and can be rather verbose.

        • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          I do use python quite a bit for scripting and backend, app, and I’ve used MicroPython a little bit, preferring C, C++ for embedded. It’s pretty great for what I need.

          I might mess around with Rust out of curiosity anyway, though the downsides you mention make it less compelling for me, personally. I’m not a big fan of verbose languages (e.g., Java, though I have used it for some apps).

          • YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee
            2·
            11 months ago

            If you are curious definitely do check it out! It’s a really cool language to learn and you’ll start to enjoy the fight the compiler puts up.

    • LoETR9@feddit.it
      19·
      11 months ago

      I feel like C++ is as competent as Rust for any project and it’s definitely older.

      • weclaw@lemm.ee
        2·
        11 months ago

        Before using Rust I was using C++ for most projects and while it is a really powerful language there were some big problems:

        • no standard build system, most projects use cmake or meson and vendor dependencies with the projects. These build systems were really hard to learn (especially cmake, meson is easier). There are package managers these days such as conan and vcpkg but there is not really one standard way to build programs like in rust.
        • error messages were really hard to understand, especially when the project uses templates
        • it felt like 3 languages in one, projects written before c++11 differ greatly from c++11 and up
        • some of the new language features have really weird syntax, for example lambdas
        • some people say that rust is hard, but modern c++ is considerably harder to learn, just look at the list of modern c++ features: https://github.com/AnthonyCalandra/modern-cpp-features, you have to know the different pointer types (unique_pointer, shared_pointer etc.), templates, rvalue references and move semantic, exceptions, constexpressions and the list goes on
      • Wooki@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        Rust was created because c++ was so bad. Just take a look at crates they need a whole lot less maintenance because less bugs.