Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Rust Is Coming To Debian's APT Package Manager

Link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/11/09/023...

A maintainer of Debian's Advanced Package Tool (APT) "has announced plans to
introduce hard Rust dependencies into APT starting May 2026," reports the
blog It's FOSS. The integration targets critical areas like parsing .deb,
.ar, and tar files plus HTTP signature verification using Sequoia. [APT
maintainer Julian Andres Klode] said these components "would strongly benefit
from memory safe languages and a stronger approach to unit testing." He also
gave a firm message to maintainers of Debian ports: "If you maintain a port
without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6
months, or sunset the port." The reasoning is straightforward. Debian wants
to move forward with modern tools rather than being held back by legacy
architecture... Debian ports running on CPU architectures without Rust
compiler support have six months to add proper toolchains. If they can't meet
this deadline, those ports will need to be discontinued. As a result, some
obscure or legacy platforms may lose official support. For most users on
mainstream architectures like x86_64 and ARM, nothing changes. Your APT will
simply become more secure and reliable under the hood. It's FOSS argues that
"If done right, this could significantly strengthen APT's security and code
quality." And the blog Linuxiac also supports the move. "By embedding Rust
into APT, the distro joins a growing number of major open-source projects,
such as the Linux kernel, Firefox, and systemd, that are gradually adopting
Rust. And if I had to guess, I'd say this is just one of the first steps
toward even deeper Rust integration in this legendary distribution, which is
a good thing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528