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by sylvestre 1439 days ago
Distributions are mostly patching software for (not specific for Rustc):

* Paths - distro don't need to keep path detection and can simplify it (ex: headers detections)

* Archs that upstream don't care about (ex: m86k).

* Kernel that upstream don't care about (kfreebsd)

* Some old CPU support. example: https://salsa.debian.org/rust-team/rust/-/blob/debian/sid/de...

* simplification of the build system (ex: skipping windows support)

* Use libraries provided by the system (ex: compiler-rt for rustc: https://salsa.debian.org/rust-team/rust/-/blob/debian/sid/de...). This could be forwarded upstream.

* Some minor doc changes - for example, https://salsa.debian.org/rust-team/rust/-/blob/debian/sid/de... will use the local css file and not a remote css file (for offline support)

* Cherry-pick upstream fixes before the next upstream release: https://salsa.debian.org/rust-team/rust/-/blob/debian/sid/de...

* etc

As you can see, these patches do not impact the quality of Rustc itself. Some could be forwarded upstream (it is a pain for packagers to maintain patches - so, we do have strong incentives to contribute upstream).