Install Rust on Linux

Installing Rust on Linux

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Introduction

Rust is a relatively young language in the field of systems programming. The first stable version appeared in 2015, though it was announced back in 2010. It combines different programming paradigms, namely from functional, object-oriented, and concurrent programming. This means programmers from other languages will quickly find familiar elements, though they may also be intimidated by paradigms they don’t know yet.

Installation

The easiest way to install Rust is using rustup, the official Rust installer. To do this, enter the following curl command in your terminal:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

This command downloads a script and starts the installation of the rustup tool, which in turn installs the latest version of Rust. Once the installation is complete, a message will appear: “Rust is installed now. Great!”

Now you’re almost ready to start programming. Next, make sure a linker is installed. This is usually included with a C compiler. In other words: you should install either GCC or Clang. On Ubuntu, it is sufficient to install the build-essential package:

sudo apt install build-essential

If you use an openSUSE distribution, the following command will help:

sudo zypper install gcc

On Fedora Linux, run the following command:

sudo dnf install curl gcc make

You can verify that the C compiler was installed successfully by running:

gcc --version

After the Installation

Once Rust is installed, three new commands become available. It’s a good idea to run each of them with the --version option to verify the installation. (You should restart the terminal first.)

rustc --version
rustdoc --version
cargo --version
  • rustc is the Rust compiler.
  • rustdoc allows you to create documentation (in HTML format).
  • cargo is the central tool for compiling and managing packages.
    Although you can use rustc to compile directly, it’s generally better to use cargo.

Creating a New Rust Project

Use cargo to create a new project or package. The following command creates a package named “hello”:

cargo new hello

This generates a new folder with the same name. Inside, you’ll find the Cargo.toml file and a subdirectory called src. As the name suggests, this is where the code files go. Initially, it contains just one file: main.rs.

hello
  |
  |--Cargo.toml
  |--src
      |-- main.rs

The File main.rs

Let’s take a look at the main.rs file located in the src subfolder. First, change into the project directory using:

cd hello

Then start Visual Studio Code with:

code .

The main.rs file contains just three lines of code:

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

This is the main() function — introduced by the keyword fn — which uses the println!() macro (indicated by the exclamation mark) to print the text “Hello, world!”.

You can run this code in the terminal. In Visual Studio Code, you can open a terminal via:

> Terminal > New Terminal

In the terminal, run:

cargo run

or simply:

cargo r

This will compile the code and run the program, displaying “Hello, world!”.

A new subdirectory named target is also created. Inside its debug subfolder, you’ll find the files generated by the compiler, including the executable hello.exe.

To remove all files created during the build process, use:

cargo clean

This will delete the target directory.

To perform only the build process (without running the program), use:

cargo build

Another useful command is:

cargo check

This checks whether your code contains any warnings or errors, i.e., whether it is compilable. No executable is created during this process.

Now you know how to get started with Rust. If you’d like to learn more, you should definitely take a look at the official documentation.

RustRover

RustRover is a high-quality development environment for Rust, available for free in its Community Edition. It can be downloaded here. RustRover was developed by JetBrains, who previously offered a Rust plugin for their IDEs.

Further Links