Comment by VorpalWay
3 hours ago
You could use https://github.com/thepowersgang/mrustc to get relatively modern Rust compiler (1.90 currently apparently, but every now and then that is updated). Then build newer rustc from there to reach the current 1.99.
But I don't get why some people are obsessed with bootstrapping. Yes it is good to be able to do it, but it isn't something you need to do regularly.
Especially since rust had a much better cross compilation story than C or C++ (not as good as go or zig though), so you don't need to bootstrap on a new architecture, just cross compile to it. Furthermore, new architectures for hosting a compiler (as opposed to just a target, like microcontrollers) is a rare event. Just something that happens every few years.
> But I don't get why some people are obsessed with bootstrapping.
It only matters if you have supply chain attacks in your threat model. Given they are up 400x since 2019, they should probably be in almost every threat model. Most distros operate on the honor system and that is not going to survive the post AI world.
That's why you have signed packages that everyone can rebuild and verify from the very early stages of bootstrapping to speed up the process and get back to a synchronization point that is reasonable.
Distros that are not fully hermetic and don't have reproducible packages (and there are many layers of reproducibility) will certainly have issues, but that's not a huge problem as long as you have a documented path to getting back to the current state. It doesn't need to be the fastest path, just a verifiable chain of trust.
We do sign our packages, but the threat model is to minimize the time it takes for users to not have to trust us.
It is critical to encourage many independent verifications that it be as fast as possible that someone can go from a clone of our tree of pure source code to the exact release hashes we publish.
Adding any binaries to that means someone that distrusts us must now go build those past releases as well, and if they rely on binaries, they must build those past past releases as well. This approach would make verification time go up dramatically every release.