Linux 7.0 Concludes the Rust Experiment, Making the Language a Permanent Part of the Kernel
Linux 7.0, expected in mid-April 2026, formally ends the three-year Rust experiment in the kernel. The decision, reached at the 2025 Maintainers Summit in Tokyo, promotes Rust from experimental status to a core kernel language alongside C and assembly.
Overview
Linux 7.0, which is expected to reach its stable release between April 12 and April 19, 2026, will be the first kernel version to formally conclude what its developers call the “Rust experiment.” A patch submitted by Rust for Linux lead maintainer Miguel Ojeda removes the experimental designation from the language’s presence in the kernel, making Rust an officially supported language for kernel development alongside C and assembly.
The decision was reached at the 2025 Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit in Tokyo, where LWN editor Jonathan Corbet reported that “the consensus among the assembled developers is that Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental — it is now a core part of the kernel and is here to stay.” Developer Steven Rostedt noted that “there was zero pushback” against the decision.
From Experiment to Infrastructure
Rust first entered the Linux kernel mainline in version 6.1, released in December 2022. For three years, the language carried an explicit experimental label, meaning it could theoretically be removed if the social, technical, or procedural costs proved too high. That label is now gone.
The shift does not mean the kernel is being rewritten in Rust. As of early 2025, the kernel contained approximately 34 million lines of C and roughly 25,000 lines of Rust. Instead, the plan focuses on writing new drivers and subsystems in Rust where memory safety provides tangible security benefits, particularly in “leaf” drivers for networking and storage that handle untrusted input.
Ojeda summarized the change: “The experiment is done, i.e. Rust is here to stay.” He added a caveat that this does not mean everything works for every kernel configuration, architecture, or toolchain, but the commitment to supporting Rust as a first-class development language is now official.
Rust Drivers in Production
Rust kernel code is already running on millions of devices. Android 16 devices based on the Linux 6.12 kernel ship with ashmem, an anonymous shared memory subsystem built in Rust. Several major Linux distributions enable Rust kernel components, and the NVIDIA Nova GPU driver — written entirely in Rust and targeting Turing and newer GPU architectures — continues to expand its hardware support in the drm-rust-next development tree.
The Nova driver, which depends on NVIDIA’s GPU System Processor firmware, has been under active development since its initial inclusion in Linux 6.15. Work on DRM Rust abstractions is being prepared for the Linux 7.1 merge window, with the goal of making Rust-based graphics drivers more capable and self-sufficient.
Linux 7.0 at a Glance
The version number jump from 6.19 to 7.0 carries no special technical significance. Linus Torvalds explained that he is “getting to the point where I’m being confused by large numbers (almost running out of fingers and toes again),” continuing a pattern where he resets the major version number roughly every 20 minor releases.
Beyond the Rust milestone, Linux 7.0 includes a Live Update Orchestrator for performing kernel upgrades without disrupting virtual machines, encrypted communications between PCIe devices and VMs, and networking improvements that remove a busy lock and could increase data transfer speeds by up to four times in specific scenarios.
The kernel is preparing for compatibility with Rust 1.95, which is scheduled for a stable release on April 16, 2026. Kernel developers have already submitted patches to address stricter compiler checks in Rust 1.95, including a missing type bound in the irq module and linter warnings in the pin-init crate.
What Changes for Kernel Contributors
The end of the experimental period means new drivers and subsystems can now be submitted in Rust without the implicit assumption that the language might be removed. This is expected to accelerate adoption, particularly in areas where memory-safety guarantees reduce the attack surface of code that parses network packets, handles file system operations, or manages device firmware.
The Debian project has announced that its APT package manager will carry hard Rust requirements starting in May 2026, further cementing the language’s role in the Linux ecosystem beyond the kernel itself.