What's even cooler than writing your own text editor or your own operating system? Building your own hardware from scratch with all the software written in Rust -- including firmware, the scheduler, and the hypervisor. Oxide Computer Company is one of the most admired companies in the Rust community. They are building "servers as they should be" with a focus on security and performance to serve the needs of modern on-premise data centers.

In this episode, I talk to Steve Klabnik, a software engineer at Oxide and renowned Rustacean, about the advantages of building hardware and software in tandem, the benefits of using Rust for systems programming, and the state of the Rust ecosystem.
About Oxide Computer Company
Founded by industry giants Bryan Cantrill, Jessie Frazelle, and Steve Tuck, Oxide Computer Company is a beloved name in the Rust community. They took on the daunting task of rethinking how servers are built -- starting all the way from the hardware and boot process (and no, there is no BIOS). Their 'On The Metal' podcast is a treasure trove of systems programming stories and proudly served as a role model for 'Rust in Production.'

About Steve Klabnik

In the Rust community, Steve does not need any introduction. He is a prolific writer, speaker, and software engineer who has contributed to the Rust ecosystem in many ways -- including writing the first version of the official Rust book. If you sent a tweet about Rust in the early days, chances are Steve was the one who replied. Previously, he worked at Mozilla and was a member of the Rust and Ruby core teams.

Links From The Episode (In Chronological Order)
 

• The Rust Programming Language (No Starch Press version) - The official Rust book
• The Story of Rust - FOSDEM / The History of Rust - ACM - Early history of Rust
• Signing Party - Story from Macintosh development
• The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - Classic book on computer engineering
• I have come to bury the BIOS - Bryan's talk on firmware
• Beowulf cluster - Early parallel computing architecture
• Bryan's blog post on Rust - Journey of a systems programmer to Rust
• JavaOS - Operating system written in Java
• D Programming Language - Systems programming language
• Garbage Collection in early Rust - Historical Rust development
• Removing green threads RFC - Major change in Rust's concurrency model
• Hubris - Oxide's embedded operating system
• Tock OS - Embedded operating system in Rust predating Hubris
• cargo-xtask - Build automation for Rust projects
• Hubris Build Documentation - Building Hubris using cargo xtask
• Buck Build System - Facebook's build system
• Buildomat - Oxide's build system
• Omicron - Oxide's manufacturing test framework
• illumos - Unix operating system
• bhyve - BSD VM hypervisor
• About Self-hosted Runners - GitHub Actions documentation
• Async Drop Initiative - Rust async development
• Rust Playground Example - Demonstrating helpful error when using prefix await operator
• Rust Book - Modules - Rust module system
• OpenAPI Specification - API documentation standard
• Dropshot - Oxide's OpenAPI server framework
• Axum - Web framework for Rust
• Oxide Console - Oxide's web interface
• Oxide Console Preview - Demo of Oxide Console using a mocked backend
• Oxide RFD 1 - Request for Discussion process
• Rust RFCs - Rust's design process
• IETF RFCs - Internet standards process
• Zig - Systems programming language
• TigerBeetle - Financial accounting database written in Zig
• Bun - JavaScript toolkit written in Zig
• CockroachDB - Distributed SQL database used in Oxide's backplane
• Oxide and Friends: Wither CockroachDB? - Discussing Cockroach's switch away from BUSL
• Mozilla Public License - Oxide's default software license
• Asahi Linux - Linux on Apple Silicon with Rust drivers
• Buck2 - Meta's build system
• Jujutsu (jj) - Git replacement
• Steve's Jujutsu Tutorial - Guide to jj 
• Steve's blog post on not naming branches

Official Links

• Oxide Computer Company - Building servers as they should be
• On The Metal Podcast - Stories from the hardware/software boundary
• Steve Klabnik's Blog - Thoughts on programming, Rust, and more
• Steve Klabnik on Bluesky - Follow Steve for Rust updates and more

Picture this: Your organization's data infrastructure resembles a busy kitchen with too many cooks. You're juggling Kafka for messaging, Flink for processing, Spark for analytics, Airflow for orchestration, and various Lambda functions scattered about. Each tool excellent at its job, but together they've created a complex feast of integration challenges. Your data teams are spending more time managing tools than extracting value from data.
InfinyOn reimagines this chaos with a radically simple approach: a unified system for data streaming that runs everywhere. Unlike traditional solutions that struggle at the edge, InfinyOn gracefully handles data streams from IoT devices to cloud servers. And instead of cobbling together different tools, developers can build complete data pipelines using their preferred languages - be it Rust, Python, or SQL - with built-in state management.At the heart of InfinyOn is Fluvio, a Rust-based data streaming platform that's fast, reliable, and easy to use.
About InfinyOn
Data pipelines are often slow, unreliable, and complex. InfinyOn, the creators of Fluvio, aims to fix this. Built in Rust, Fluvio offers fast, reliable data streaming. It lets you build event-driven pipelines quickly, running as a single 37 MB binary. With features like SmartModules, it handles various data types efficiently. Designed for developers, it offers a clean API and intuitive CLI. Streamline your data infrastructure at infinyon.com/rustinprod.
About Deb Roy Chowdhury
For fifteen years, Deb has been a behavioral detective, piecing together human decision-making through conversations, data, and research. His passion lies in product innovation—finding that sweet spot where desirability, viability, and feasibility converge. From 7-person startups to tech giants of 165,000, he helped build products that people love. Deb is currently the VP of Product Management at InfinyOn, where he leads the product strategy and roadmap for Fluvio, a Rust-based data streaming platform.
Links From The Show

• Polars - Fast DataFrame library implemented in Rust
• Apache Arrow - Cross-language development platform for in-memory data
• Arroyo - SQL-based data streaming platform in Rust
• Arroyo Podcast Episode with Micah Wylde
• NATS - High-performance messaging system written in Go
• Memphis - Go-based streaming stack built with NATS as its core
• Four Horsemen Of Bad Rust Code (FOSDEM 2024) - Matthias' talk on writing bad Rust code

Official Links

• InfyOn
• Fluvio Distributed Stream Processing
• Deb on LinkedIn

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

About Zed Industries

Zed isn't afraid of daunting tasks. Not only have they built a text editor from scratch, but they've also developed their own GUI toolkit, implemented advanced parsing techniques like tree-sitter, and integrated multi-user collaboration features directly into the editor. Zed is a text editor built for the future, with meticulous attention to detail and a focus on exceptional performance.
About Conrad Irwin

Before joining Zed, Conrad worked on Superhuman, an email client renowned for its speed and efficiency. He is a seasoned developer with a deep understanding of performance optimization and building fast, reliable software. Conrad is passionate about open-source software and is a strong advocate for Rust. He's also an excellent pair-programming partner and invites people to join him while working on Zed.
Links From The Show

• Superhuman - High-performance email client known for its speed and efficiency
• Visual Studio Code - Popular, extensible code editor
• Neovim - Vim-based text editor focused on extensibility and usability
• gpui crate - Zed's custom GUI toolkit for building fast, native user interfaces
• Leptos - Rust framework for building reactive web applications
• Dioxus - Rust library for building cross-platform user interfaces
• Tokio - Asynchronous runtime for Rust, powering many network applications
• async-std - Asynchronous version of the Rust standard library
• smol - Small and fast async runtime for Rust
• Glommio - Thread-per-core Rust async framework with a Linux-specific runtime
• isahc - HTTP client library that supports multiple async runtimes
• Zed Editor YouTube channel - Official channel for Zed editor tutorials and updates
• Tree-sitter - Parser generator tool and incremental parsing library
• Semgrep - Static analysis tool for finding and preventing bugs
• Zed release changelogs - Official changelog for Zed editor releases
• matklad's blog post: "Flat Is Better Than Nested" - Discusses organizing large Rust projects with a flat structure
• rust-analyzer - Advanced language server for Rust, providing IDE-like features
• Protobuf Rust crate - Protocol Buffers implementation for Rust
• Postcard - Compact serialization format for Rust, designed for resource-constrained systems
• CBOR - Concise Binary Object Representation, a data format similar to JSON but more compact
• MessagePack - Efficient binary serialization format
• RON (Rusty Object Notation) - Simple readable data serialization format similar to Rust syntax
• James Munns' blog - Embedded systems expert and Rust consultant's blog
• Delve - Debugger for the Go programming language
• LLDB - Next generation, high-performance debugger used with Rust and other LLVM languages

Official Links

• Zed Homepage
• Zed on YouTube
• Conrad Irwin on GitHub
• Conrad Irwin on Twitter
• Conrad's Blog

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.https://corrode.dev/about

Results from the Survey 

A few weeks ago, we asked you to fill out a survey about the Rust in Production podcast. Thank you to everyone who participated! We received a lot of valuable feedback. In total, we got 82 responses. Here are some of the key takeaways: How did you discover the "Rust in Production" podcast? 

• 43% found the podcast on Mastodon
• 21% Podcast directory (Apple, Spotify, etc.)
• 9% Recommended by a friend
• 6% Twitter
• 5% LinkedIn
• 5% Search engine
• 4% Reddit
• 7% Other

How Many Episodes Have You Listened To?

• 26% have listened to all episodes
• 27% have listened to most episodes (more than half)
• 27% have listened to some episodes (less than half)
• 10% have only listened to one episode
• 10% Other

Which Aspects Of The Show Do You Enjoy The Most?

• 96% enjoy the technical content (Tech Deep Dives)
• 49% enjoy the business motivations to choose Rust
• 8% other

Top 5 topics listeners want to see covered in future episodes:

1. Cloud native development and microservices
2. Enterprise adoption
3. Performance-critical applications
4. Web and network services
5. Ecosystem deep dives

Top 5 suggested changes for the podcast:
 

1. More technical focus
2. Improved audio quality
3. Diversity in guests
4. Tighter editing
5. Format variations

Current level of experience with Rust among listeners:
 

• 15% Beginner (less than 1 year of experience)
• 46% Intermediate (1-3 years of experience)
• 19% Advanced (3-5 years of experience)
• 14% Expert (5+ years of experience)
• 6% Don't use Rust, but interested in learning

How listeners typically listen to "Rust in Production":
 

• 60% While doing household chores
• 58% While commuting
• 26% While exercising
• 21% Dedicated listening time
• 10% During work breaks
• 9% While coding
• 10% Other

How 'Rust in Production' influenced perception of Rust's viability in production:
 

• 41% Somewhat improved confidence in Rust for production use
• 36% No change in perception
• 19% Significantly improved confidence in Rust for production use
• 4% Don't have an opinion

Aspects of Rust in Production listeners are most interested in:
 

• 75% Systems programming
• 59% Web development
• 48% Data processing and analysis
• 46% Embedded systems
• 43% Network programming
• 25% Game development
• 21% Machine learning / AI

Formats listeners are most interested in:
 

• 35% System architecture deep dives
• 28% Advanced Programming Concepts in Rust
• 27% Idiomatic Rust discussions
• 9% Pair programming sessions
• 1% Other

Office Hours:
Join our Corrode Office Hours every Thursday at 4 PM UTC. Bring your questions, and we'll try to help you out! Dates: August 15, 22, 29; September 5, 12, 19, 26; October 3. To learn more, check out the office hours page on our website: https://corrode.dev/office-hours
 
Links from the Episode:
The History of Rust - Steve Klabnik: https://youtu.be/79PSagCD_AY?si=oNH9u1HPQ9welYjZ
Nickel Framework by Christoph Burgdorf: https://nickel-org.github.io
tokio on crates.io: https://crates.io/crates/tokio
The 'New Rustacean' podcast: https://newrustacean.com/
Simon Brüggen (M3t0r) on GitHub: https://github.com/M3t0r
Simon Brüggen (M3t0r) on Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@m3t0r
Matthias Endler on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@mre
About corrode Rust Consulting: https://corrode.dev/about
'Rust in Production' Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rust-in-production/id1720771330 'Rust in Production' Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Hf6gWrzpSzXp1X0cebbsT
Credits:
Audio editing and mastering by Simon Brüggen (M3t0r).
 
About corrode:
"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

Many devs dream of one day writing their own operating system. Ideally in their favorite language: Rust. For many of us, this dream remains just that: a dream.

Jeremy Soller from System76, however, didn't just contribute kernel code for Pop!_OS, but also started his own operating system, RedoxOS, which is completely written in Rust. One might get the impression that he likes to tinker with low-level code!
In this episode of Rust in Production, Jeremy talks about his journey. From getting hired as a kernel developer at Denver-based company System76 after looking at the job ad for 1 month and finally applying, to being the maintainer of not one but two operating systems, additional system tools, and the Rust-based Cosmic desktop. We'll talk about why it's hard to write correct C code even for exceptional developers like Jeremy and why Rust is so great for refactoring and sharing code across different levels of abstraction.
About System76

From hardware all the way up to the UI, System76 pushes hard for vertical integration. The company has a strong following amongst Linux enthusiasts and is a big advocate for Rust. They use it across the stack for most (all?) of their major projects. Instead of GNOME or KDE, the Denver-based company even built their own user interface in Rust, called COSMIC.
About Jeremy Soller

Jeremy is a hardware and kernel hacker who has an intricate understanding of low-level computing. With Redox OS, an operating system fully written in Rust, he was one of the first developers who pushed the boundaries of what was possible with the still young language. The first release of Redox was in April 2015 when Rust hadn't even reached 1.0. By all means, Jeremy is a pioneer in the Rust community, an expert in low-level programming, and an advocate for robust, reliable systems programming.
About our Sponsor: InfinyOn

Data pipelines are often slow, unreliable, and complex. InfinyOn, the creators of Fluvio, aims to fix this. Built in Rust, Fluvio offers fast, reliable data streaming. It lets you build event-driven pipelines quickly, running as a single 37 MB binary. With features like SmartModules, it handles various data types efficiently. Designed for developers, it offers a clean API and intuitive CLI. Streamline your data infrastructure at infinyon.com/rustinprod.

Links From The Show

• RedoxOS
• System76 firmware updater
• OpenCV
• Old Rust syntax examples (click "start" to see changes over time!)
• iced
• cosmic
• softbuffer, a framebuffer crate
• rust-boot
• x86_64_unknown_none target triplet
• Osborne 1
• CP/M
• Security vulnerabilities in the Rust std library
• StackOverflow Survey: Rust is the most-admired programming language with an 83% score in 2024.
• orbclient
• Intel 8051 Wikipedia
• Raspberry RP2040
• Philipp Oppermann: "Writing an OS in Rust"
• libcosmic
• distinst
• softbuffer

Official Links

• System76
• Redox OS
• Jeremy's private homepage
• Jeremy on GitHub
• Jeremy on Mastodon
• InfinyOn's Homepage
  
  

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

Rust can run everywhere, and by everywhere, we don't just mean on all operating systems, but also in all kinds of harsh environments: from the depths of the ocean to the vastness of space. Today we talk to a company that is using Rust to conquer the air. Fusion Engineering is building drone control systems for the next generation of drones.

Jakub Valtar walks us through how Fusion Engineering came to use Rust as the foundation of their company. He explains why Rust is the safest choice for building drone control systems and what it takes to get into drone development.
About Fusion Engineering
Fusion Engineering identified a critical gap in the industry: while drone hardware has advanced rapidly, software development has lagged behind.Their approach is ambitious - developing drone control systems from the ground up, with a strong focus on safety. It's about making drones fly reliably in complex environments.Their flight controller is designed to meet the most stringent EU regulations, potentially allowing drones to operate safely in urban areas and withstand harsh conditions offshore.
About Jakub Valtar
Jakub Valtar is a game engine developer turned drone software engineer. He feels comfortable in performance-critical environments and loves the intersection between art and technology. He joined Fusion Engineering to work on control systems for the next generation of drones.

Links From The Show

• Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
• PID controller - Wikipedia article on Proportional-Integral-Derivative controllers
• Rust Atomics and Locks - Book by Mara Bos on concurrency in Rust
• inline-python - Rust crate for embedding Python code directly in Rust
• intbits - Rust crate for working with individual bits
• git-version - Rust crate for embedding Git version information in your binary
• Ferrocene - Safety-critical Rust toolchain by Ferrous Systems

Official Links

• Fusion Engineering
• Jakub Valtar on GitHub
• Jakub Valtar on X
• Art by Jakub Valtar

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

It has become a trope by now: "Cars are computers on wheels." In modern cars, not only the infotainment system but also the engine, brakes, and steering wheel are controlled by software. Better make sure that software is safe.Alexandru Radovici is a Software Engineer at OxidOS, a company that builds a secure, open-source operating system for cars built on Rust and Tock. We talk about the challenges of certifying Rust code for the automotive industry and the new possibilities with Rust-based car software.
About OxidOS
OxidOS is a Rust-based secure ecosystem for safety critical automotive ECUs. Their solution consists of a Rust-based Secure Operating System and DevTools for medium-size microcontrollers inside automotive ECUs, designed for safety-critical applications. The OxidOS ecosystem provides significant security and safety enhancements while reducing development and certification time by half for automotive ECU software development projects. This is achieved through the usage of Rust that brings benefits such as memory and thread safety enforced at compile time. The OxidOS architecture runs memory sandboxed applications, which have cryptographic credentials and are digitally signed.

About Alexandru Radovici
Alexandru Radovici is an Associate Professor at the Politehnica University in Bucharest, Romania, where he has been using Rust to teach for a few years. Alexandru is also one of the maintainers of the Tock embedded operating system, written fully in Rust.

Links From The Show

• llvm-cov
• Pietro Albini at Rust Nation UK: "How Ferrocene qualified the Rust Compiler"
• microkernel
• Postcard
• WASM
• Embassy
• Alex's embedded course (it's free)
• probe-rs
• Alex's Tock book: "Getting Started with Secure Embedded Systems: Developing IoT Systems for micro:bit and Raspberry Pi Pico Using Rust and Tock"
• Tour of Rust
• sudo-rs
• ntpd-rs
• embedded world

Official Links

• OxidOS
• Tock
• Alexandru Radovici on LinkedIn

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

About MaticMatic is on a mission to solve everyday problems with robotics. Design Milk wrote in an article about Matic: "Matic Robot Vacuum Collects Dust but Not Your Personal Data" and I really love that quote. It's a great summary of what Matic is about: privacy-respecting, truly smart robots. The San Francisco-based startup recently raised a $24M Series A round.

About Eric SeppanenEric is a systems engineer with a passion for reliable, well-designed software. He has a background in kernel development and high-performance computing with C++ and now works on robotics with Rust.With his calm and insightful demeanor, Eric is the ideal person to talk about Rust's strengths for people with a C++ background.

Links From The Show

• Why Rust? It's the Safe Choice
• Folkert's episode
• egui
• SLAM
• Tokio Async Runtime
• reqwest
• Axum web framework
• The Cargo Book: "features should be additive"
• Jon Gjengset's YouTube channel
• Jon's book "Rust for Rusteaceans"
• Mara Bos' book "Rust Atomics and Locks"
• Will Wilson from antithesis about FoundationDB: "Is something bugging you?"

Official Links

• Matic Blog
• Matic on Twitter
• Matic on LinkedIn
• Eric Seppanen on LinkedIn

About corrode"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.

About MZLA
The MZLA Technologies Corporation is a fully-owned subsidiary of Mozilla that develops and maintains the Thunderbird email client. The project can be supported at give.thunderbird.net.

About Brendan Abolivier
Brendan joined the Thunderbird team in 2023 and has been working on the Rust-based Exchange protocol support. Previously, he worked on the Matrix protocol and the Element chat client. He is a strong advocate for open-source software and maintains projects written in Rust, Python, and Go.

Links From The Show

• Bringing Exchange Support To Thunderbird
• element
• synapse
• State of Open conference London
• Thunderbird as part of MZLA
• Evolution Exchange Support
• FOSDEM'24: "Thunderbird: How to Exchange Rot For Rust"
• quick_xml crate
• http crate
• Donate to Thunderbird

Official Links

• Thunderbird
• Brendan's Homepage
• Brendan on GitHub
• Brendan on Twitter

About AMP
AMP gives waste and recycling leaders the power to harness artificial intelligence and solve the industry’s biggest challenges. The company uses cutting-edge technology to help waste and recycling facilities improve their operations and increase recycling rates.AMP transforms the economics of the waste industry to make recycling more efficient, cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable.

About Carter Schultz
Carters Schultz is a Robotics Architect at AMP Robotics. He has a background in robotics and computer vision. Previous employers include Neya Systems and SpaceX. An engineer at heart, Carter is passionate about building systems that work reliably and efficiently and pushes the boundaries of what is possible with technology. He is a charismatic speaker and curious mind with a passion for teaching and learning.

Links From The Show

• AMP ONE unveiling video
• Air Jet Sorting
• OpenCV
• Robot Operating System
• C++ Templates are Turing Complete, T. Veldhuizen, 2003
• Modbus
• tokio_tungstenite crate
• async mqtt crate
• serde
• serde_rosmsg crate
• ts-rs
• leptos
• tauri
• Quote from RustConf 2023 talk announcement: "the project went shockingly well"

Official Links

• AMP
• Carter's personal homepage

About corrode

"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.