Linux 7.0 Kernel Marks New Era for Rust as Developers Prepare for Rust 1.95

Linux 7.0 Kernel Marks New Era for Rust as Developers Prepare for Rust 1.95

February 22, 2026

The Linux kernel is entering a new chapter in its relationship with the Rust programming language.

As the Linux 7.0 development cycle gets underway, two major milestones have arrived in quick succession: Rust is officially no longer an experiment in the kernel, and developers are already laying the groundwork for compatibility with the upcoming Rust 1.95 release.

Rust Graduates from “Experimental” Status

Earlier this month, during the Linux 7.0 merge window that opened on February 9, the kernel’s main Rust pull request included a symbolic but significant patch: the formal conclusion of the “Rust experiment.” As Rust lead maintainer Miguel Ojeda wrote in the patch description: the experiment is over — Rust is here to stay.

This decision had been building for some time. The Linux Kernel Developers Summit in December 2025 reached consensus that Rust had proven its worth. There are already production deployments running Rust kernel code, several major Linux distributions ship with Rust-based kernel components, and millions of Android devices rely on it. Rust first entered the mainline kernel in version 6.1 back in late 2022, and the first Rust-written drivers were accepted in version 6.8. Nearly four years of gradual integration have given maintainers enough confidence to make the commitment official.

Importantly, this does not mean every kernel subsystem must adopt Rust. Individual subsystem maintainers retain the freedom to keep Rust out of their areas, and some have chosen to do so for practical bandwidth reasons. But at the project level, Rust is now a first-class citizen alongside C and assembly.

Rust 1.95 Preparations Already Underway

Even as the symbolic milestone was being celebrated, kernel developers moved quickly to the next task: a round of fixes submitted this week for Linux 7.0 that prepares the kernel for the upcoming Rust 1.95 compiler release.

Rust 1.95 is scheduled to branch from master on February 27 and reach its stable release on April 16 — a date that lines up closely with Linux 7.0’s own expected stable release in mid-April 2026. Among the notable changes in Rust 1.95 is the stabilization of if let guards syntax, adjustments to several platform ports to Tier 2 support status, and various other improvements.

To get ahead of the transition, kernel developers are now passing the -Zunstable-options compiler flag for Linux 7.0 builds. This flag is required by Rust 1.95 and enables the use of other unstable command-line options that the new compiler version will rely on.

The preparatory work also uncovered an issue: Rust 1.95’s stricter checks detected a missing bound (constraint) in the kernel’s irq module that needs to be addressed before the new compiler version ships. Developers are working to resolve it. A Clippy linter warning also surfaced in the pin-init crate, which is being handled as part of the same round of fixes.

What Linux 7.0 Looks Like So Far

Linux 7.0 is still in its release candidate phase — RC1 arrived today, February 22, with weekly release candidates expected until the final stable release, projected for mid-April 2026. The major version bump from 6.x to 7.0 was driven entirely by Linus Torvalds’ numbering preference (he noted he was “running out of fingers and toes” counting up from 6), not by any single sweeping technical change.

That said, the 7.0 cycle is shaping up to be a substantial one. Beyond the Rust milestones, it brings improved EXT4 filesystem performance for concurrent direct I/O writes, significant scheduler updates including long-awaited time slice extensions, new hardware support for Intel and AMD GPUs, display support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and even native support for Rock Band 4 guitar controllers.

The kernel is also expected to ship as part of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon,” due April 23, 2026, meaning its Rust improvements will reach a wide enterprise and desktop audience almost immediately after release.

Sources: Phoronix, LWN.net, 9to5Linux, XDA Developers

Linux 7.0 Kernel Marks New Era for Rust as Developers Prepare for Rust 1.95