Rust For Linux 7.1 Bringing Experimental Option That Can Help Performance

The Rust for Linux 7.1 update bumps the minimum Rust version to 1.85 (up from 1.78) and requires Bindgen 0.71.1. A notable new addition is the experimental CONFIG_RUST_INLINE_HELPERS Kconfig option, which inlines C helpers into Rust code similarly to LTO but scoped to C helpers only. This option delivers measurable performance gains — for example, the Rust null block driver runs ~2% faster. It requires Clang as the C compiler with matching LLVM major version, as it relies on LLVM IR linking. The feature also works with loadable kernel modules. Additional changes include global per-version flags, kernel crate enhancements, and Rust analyzer improvements.