Can a Linux derivative OS comparable to macOS be written in Rust?

3 points by donboscow 3y ago ↗ HN

Rust appears to be safe and cool language, many discussions going on about rewriting existing parts of kernels like bootloaders to make them memory safe, etc. Is Rust a good candidate to write an OS like Mac OS? AFAIK, there are two aspects to such an OS - it should be super smooth and performant, and secondly, it should be able to expose a sophisticated toolchain and SDK to create apps, much like Swift/Cocoa for Mac. Can Rust do both as of now? Can the Rust-GTK combination, as mentioned here: https://bit.ly/3VHwkcE, enable creation of beautiful and performant apps like Mac OS apps? And can it expose an SDK and toolkit as sophisticated as Cocoa/Swift/Clang for developers to do their jobs easily?

4 comments

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wmf 3y ago ↗

I don't think Gtk is the answer because it's fundamentally an old toolkit, but an OS built around Xilem would be an interesting idea.

donboscow 3y ago ↗

Is Xilem remotely as mature a framework as one required for writing an OS and generating a toolchain and SDK at par with Mac OS (or iOS), Cocoa/Swift/Flutter?

No, it's not mature at all at this point.

Hmm got it. If a Linux skin is rewritten in Qt, and the SDK and tool chain are exposed through Qt, can they be as performant, smooth and give the native feel like Mac OS or iOS apps?