Using Cargo

When you start reading about Rust, you will soon meet Cargo, the standard tool used in the Rust ecosystem to build and run Rust applications. Here we want to give a brief overview of what Cargo is and how it fits into the wider ecosystem and how it fits into this training.

Installation

Rustup (Recommended)

You can follow the instructions to install cargo and rust compiler, among other standard ecosystem tools with the rustup tool, which is maintained by the Rust Foundation.

Along with cargo and rustc, Rustup will install itself as a command line utility that you can use to install/switch toolchains, setup cross compilation, etc.

Package Managers

Debian

On Debian/Ubuntu, you can install Cargo, the Rust source and the Rust formatter with

$ sudo apt install cargo rust-src rustfmt

This will allow rust-analyzer to jump to the definitions. We suggest using VS Code to edit the code (but any LSP compatible editor works).

Some folks also like to use the JetBrains family of IDEs, which do their own analysis but have their own tradeoffs. If you prefer them, you can install the Rust Plugin. Please take note that as of January 2023 debugging only works on the CLion version of the JetBrains IDEA suite.