Compiling the Linux Kernel with gccrs
Talkat RustConf 2026 · on Wednesday, 2026-09-09· at 14:00· Room 510bd | Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Palais des Congrès de Montréal·
summary
Project aims to compile the Linux kernel with a GCC-based Rust compiler but cannot yet produce a safe, runnable kernel image; work focuses on name-resolution rewrite that takes three years and now drives complete macro expansion, and on compiling core almost complete and alloc/drop infrastructure (GSOC contributions add drop handling but nonlinear drops and temporaries still break). Some kernel crates (FFI, builder) compile using a temporary v dump metadata; runtime equivalence with rustc remains unfinished.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 3:17What compiling the kernel means
- 8:23Challenges of compiling core
- 15:56Strategy to compile the kernel
- 18:28Name resolution rewrite
- 21:24Progress on compiling core
- 26:24Next steps for GCCRS
- 30:58Compatibility with RustC
- 33:10Acknowledgments and Q&A
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