Mold High Speed Linker Being Rewritten In Rust, Hopes To Be The Default Linker On Linux
The Mold high performance linker that typically outperforms the likes of LLVM lld, GNU LD, Wild, and others is being rewritten in the Rust programming language and also has an ambitious goal of being adopted as the default linker on Linux systems...
Mold, a fast linker developed over the past two decades, remains unsuitable for widespread adoption on Linux systems due to compatibility issues. The default linker, /usr/bin/ld, on most Linux distributions is still GNU ld, which often results in slower link jobs compared to mold. Michael Larabel, the original author of both lld and mold, acknowledges his role in this situation despite his efforts to optimize linker performance.
With the upcoming mold 3.0 release, the focus is on making mold a viable default linker by implementing missing linker script features and conducting rigorous compatibility testing. The Linux distribution developers are being engaged to facilitate the transition to mold as the system linker. Additionally, the team is investigating the possibility of incorporating incremental linking, which could further enhance mold's performance while maintaining its simplicity and reliability.
Written by urgent.news from Phoronix's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
