At FOSDEM 2025, Sylvestre Ledru announced major progress on uutils, his Rust-based replacement for GNU Coreutils. Nearly five years in the making, the project, begun during the COVID lockdown, has rewritten over 100 essential Unix/Linux utilities, boasts over 530 contributors and 18,000+ GitHub stars. Aiming for safer, more performant drop-in replacements, uutils passes nearly 500 of the GNU coreutils test suite and is used by projects like Debian-based Apertis, Spectacles smartglasses, and Microsoft Visual Studio Code. Ledru's next target: expanding the Rust rewrite to other key Debian/Ubuntu packages, addressing the challenges of C maintenance and offering a modern experience for new developers.
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