18KB ls alternative in no_std rust and Libc
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HN · launched Jul 15, 2026 · 23 upvotes (top 26%) · 0 views
Niche: file management tools · 97 launches, 12 in the last 7 days ▲ +20% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 97 launches in file management tools →
Could you build this?
Partial While the logic of the `ls` command is conceptually simple, writing a `no_std` Rust binary constrained to 18KB requires low-level systems programming and manual direct libc/syscall interaction.
What it would actually take: The program must be written in Rust without the standard library (`no_std`), disabling default allocators, panic handlers, and unwinding. It requires interfacing directly with POSIX syscalls (`sys_getdents64`, `statx`) and manually formatting terminal output, requiring systems programming expertise to minimize binary size.
Discussion
5 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: BusyBox, GNU coreutils, Python scripts with glob/pathlib, Plan 9 (9base)
Concerns raised: Only implements small subset of GNU ls functionality, Rust+libc cross-compilation complexity, Space efficiency compared to alternatives, Performance vs. smaller implementation size
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 1357 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #362 of 1358 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 257 days after the earliest competitor.
- I wrote a ~2KB executable file HTTP file downloader without Libc · hn · 2026-03-29 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- flashtex · github · 2026-09-12 · 52 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Writing Rust modules for the xv6 kernel · hn · 2025-12-01 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Rust but Lisp · hn · 2026-05-09 · 218 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Zero deps C++ ASR binary for Linux (0MB idle RAM, no daemons, Unix way) · hn · 2026-06-04 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Hybrid-Transpiler · hn · 2025-12-26 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- lsm-engine · github · 2026-09-12 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Ttar 2.4 KB freestanding TAR archiver written in C, no Libc · hn · 2026-06-12 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.54
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