mold 3.0.0 is a major release that rewrites the high-speed linker in Rust, replacing the C++ codebase (2.42.1 is the last C++ release). It is intended as a drop-in replacement: same command-line options, supported architectures, and comparable linking performance. The rewrite aims to close remaining compatibility gaps with GNU ld (especially linker script support) and to make mold suitable as a default linker in Linux distributions. The release reports extensive verification - test suites across targets, cross-checking outputs on real workloads, and building all Gentoo packages - with no regressions. The Rust port improves safety by bounds-checking reads from corrupted input files, preventing segfaults. Build and packaging have changed: mold now uses Cargo (Rust 1.95+) instead of CMake, MOLD_LIBDIR and Cargo features replace previous CMake variables, oneTBB is removed, mimalloc remains statically linked by default (with an option to use the system allocator), and zlib/zstd/BLAKE3 handling is updated. Tests run with cargo test and install-test-deps replaces the old script.
The release bundles numerous bug fixes and compatibility improvements: many crash fixes (version scripts, output-as-input, noinhibit-exec), corrected -r handling (C++ exceptions, relocations, COMDATs), gc-sections behavior, and alignment/size rules for common symbols to match GNU ld. GOT- and PC-relative relocation handling was fixed or now emits clear errors; option parsing now follows GNU ld behavior; mold no longer reserves 8 GiB of virtual address space; separate-debug-file and repro/chroot relative-path bugs are fixed; and version-script precedence was aligned with GNU ld. It also adds or fixes relocation and PLT handling across architectures (AArch64, ARM32, RISC-V, LoongArch, PPC, SPARC64, SH4, m68k), tightens error reporting for invalid constructs, and eliminates several sources of nondeterministic output.
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