Removal of mold/wild scripts and mentions in docs (#53078)

Self-Review Checklist:

- [x] I've reviewed my own diff for quality, security, and reliability
- [x] Unsafe blocks (if any) have justifying comments
- [ ] The content is consistent with the [UI/UX
checklist](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist)
- [ ] Tests cover the new/changed behavior
- [ ] Performance impact has been considered and is acceptable


Release Notes:

- N/A

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

.github/actions/build_docs/action.yml

@@ -19,10 +19,6 @@ runs:
       shell: bash -euxo pipefail {0}
       run: ./script/linux
 
-    - name: Install mold linker
-      shell: bash -euxo pipefail {0}
-      run: ./script/install-mold
-
     - name: Download WASI SDK
       shell: bash -euxo pipefail {0}
       run: ./script/download-wasi-sdk

Dockerfile-distros

@@ -11,8 +11,7 @@ ENV CARGO_TERM_COLOR=always
 
 COPY script/linux script/
 RUN ./script/linux
-COPY script/install-mold script/install-cmake script/
+COPY script/install-cmake script/
-RUN ./script/install-mold "2.34.0"
 RUN ./script/install-cmake "3.30.4"
 
 COPY . .

crates/remote/src/transport.rs

@@ -263,10 +263,6 @@ async fn build_remote_server_from_source(
             rust_flags.push_str(&format!(" -C link-arg=-L{path}"));
         }
     }
-    if build_remote_server.contains("mold") {
-        rust_flags.push_str(" -C link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold");
-    }
-
     if platform.arch.as_str() == std::env::consts::ARCH
         && platform.os.as_str() == std::env::consts::OS
     {

docs/src/development/linux.md

@@ -21,33 +21,6 @@ Clone the [Zed repository](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed).
 
   If you prefer to install the system libraries manually, you can find the list of required packages in the `script/linux` file.
 
-### Linkers {#linker}
-
-On Linux, Rust's default linker is [LLVM's `lld`](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/09/18/Rust-1.90.0/). Alternative linkers, especially [Wild](https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild) and [Mold](https://github.com/rui314/mold), can improve clean and incremental build times.
-
-Zed currently uses Mold in CI because it is more mature. For local development, Wild is recommended because it is typically 5-20% faster than Mold.
-
-These linkers can be installed with `script/install-mold` and `script/install-wild`.
-
-To use Wild as your default, add these lines to your `~/.cargo/config.toml`:
-
-```toml
-[target.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu]
-linker = "clang"
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=--ld-path=wild"]
-
-[target.aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu]
-linker = "clang"
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=--ld-path=wild"]
-```
-
-To use Mold as your default:
-
-```toml
-[target.'cfg(target_os = "linux")']
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold"]
-```
-
 ## Building from source
 
 Once the dependencies are installed, you can build Zed using [Cargo](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/).

script/install-mold

@@ -1,45 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-
-# Install `mold` official binaries from GitHub Releases.
-#
-# Adapted from the official rui314/setup-mold@v1 action to:
-# * use environment variables instead of action inputs
-# * remove make-default support
-# * use curl instead of wget
-# * support doas for sudo
-# * support redhat systems
-# See: https://github.com/rui314/setup-mold/blob/main/action.yml
-
-set -euo pipefail
-
-MOLD_VERSION="2.34.0"
-
-if [ "$(uname -s)" != "Linux" ]; then
-    echo "Error: This script is intended for Linux systems only."
-    exit 1
-elif [ -e /usr/local/bin/mold ]; then
-    echo "Warning: existing mold found at /usr/local/bin/mold. Skipping installation."
-    exit 0
-fi
-
-if [ "$(whoami)" = root ]; then SUDO=; else SUDO="$(command -v sudo || command -v doas || true)"; fi
-
-MOLD_REPO="${MOLD_REPO:-https://github.com/rui314/mold}"
-MOLD_URL="${MOLD_URL:-$MOLD_REPO}/releases/download/v$MOLD_VERSION/mold-$MOLD_VERSION-$(uname -m)-linux.tar.gz"
-
-echo "Downloading from $MOLD_URL"
-curl -fsSL --output - "$MOLD_URL" \
-    | $SUDO tar -C /usr/local --strip-components=1 --no-overwrite-dir -xzf -
-
-# Note this binary depends on the system libatomic.so.1 which is usually
-# provided as a dependency of gcc so it should be available on most systems.
-
-cat <<EOF
-Mold is installed to /usr/local/bin/mold
-
-To make it your default, add or merge these lines into your ~/.cargo/config.toml:
-
-[target.'cfg(target_os = "linux")']
-linker = "clang"
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold"]
-EOF

script/install-wild

@@ -1,44 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-
-# Install wild-linker official binaries from GitHub Releases.
-
-set -euo pipefail
-
-WILD_VERSION="${WILD_VERSION:-${1:-0.6.0}}"
-if [ "$(uname -s)" != "Linux" ]; then
-    echo "Error: This script is intended for Linux systems only."
-    exit 1
-elif [ -z "$WILD_VERSION" ]; then
-    echo "Usage: $0 [version]"
-    exit 1
-elif command -v wild >/dev/null 2>&1 && wild --version | grep -Fq "$WILD_VERSION" ; then
-    echo "Warning: existing wild $WILD_VERSION found at $(command -v wild). Skipping installation."
-    exit 0
-fi
-
-if [ "$(whoami)" = root ]; then SUDO=; else SUDO="$(command -v sudo || command -v doas || true)"; fi
-
-ARCH="$(uname -m)"
-WILD_REPO="${WILD_REPO:-https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild}"
-WILD_PACKAGE="wild-linker-${WILD_VERSION}-${ARCH}-unknown-linux-gnu"
-WILD_URL="${WILD_URL:-$WILD_REPO}/releases/download/$WILD_VERSION/${WILD_PACKAGE}.tar.gz"
-DEST_DIR=/usr/local/bin
-
-echo "Downloading from $WILD_URL"
-curl -fsSL --output - "$WILD_URL" \
-    | $SUDO tar -C ${DEST_DIR} --strip-components=1 --no-overwrite-dir -xzf - \
-    "${WILD_PACKAGE}/wild"
-
-cat <<EOF
-Wild is installed to ${DEST_DIR}/wild
-
-To make it your default, add or merge these lines into your ~/.cargo/config.toml:
-
-[target.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu]
-linker = "clang"
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=--ld-path=wild"]
-
-[target.aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu]
-linker = "clang"
-rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=--ld-path=wild"]
-EOF

script/linux

@@ -12,9 +12,6 @@ function finalize {
   # after packages install (curl, etc), get the rust toolchain
   which rustup > /dev/null 2>&1 || curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y
   cat <<EOF
-Note: It's recommended to install and configure Wild or Mold for faster builds.
-      Run script/install-wild or script/install-mold.
-
 Finished installing Linux dependencies with script/linux
 EOF
 }
@@ -55,11 +52,11 @@ if [[ -n $apt ]]; then
   )
   if (grep -qP 'PRETTY_NAME="(Debian|Raspbian).+13' /etc/os-release); then
       # libstdc++-14-dev is in build-essential
-      deps+=( mold )
+      true
   elif (grep -qP 'PRETTY_NAME="(Linux Mint 22|.+24\.(04|10))' /etc/os-release); then
-    deps+=( mold libstdc++-14-dev )
+    deps+=( libstdc++-14-dev )
   elif (grep -qP 'PRETTY_NAME="((Debian|Raspbian).+12|Linux Mint 21|.+22\.04)' /etc/os-release); then
-    deps+=( mold libstdc++-12-dev )
+    deps+=( libstdc++-12-dev )
   elif (grep -qP 'PRETTY_NAME="((Debian|Raspbian).+11|Linux Mint 20|.+20\.04)' /etc/os-release); then
     # Ubuntu 20.04 ships clang-10 and libstdc++-10 which lack adequate C++20
     # support for building webrtc-sys (requires -std=c++20, lambdas in
@@ -125,7 +122,6 @@ if [[ -n $dnf ]] || [[ -n $yum ]]; then
       perl-IPC-Cmd
       perl-File-Compare
       perl-File-Copy
-      mold
     )
   elif grep -qP '^ID="?(rhel|rocky|alma|centos|ol)' /etc/os-release; then
     deps+=( perl-interpreter )
@@ -183,7 +179,6 @@ if [[ -n $zyp ]]; then
     libxkbcommon-x11-devel
     libzstd-devel
     make
-    mold
     openssl-devel
     sqlite3-devel
     tar
@@ -217,7 +212,6 @@ if [[ -n $pacman ]]; then
     openssl
     zstd
     pkgconf
-    mold
     sqlite
     pipewire
     xdg-desktop-portal
@@ -250,7 +244,6 @@ if [[ -n $xbps ]]; then
     openssl-devel
     wayland-devel
     vulkan-loader
-    mold
     sqlite-devel
     pipewire
     xdg-desktop-portal
@@ -277,7 +270,6 @@ if [[ -n $emerge ]]; then
     media-libs/vulkan-loader
     x11-libs/libxcb
     x11-libs/libxkbcommon
-    sys-devel/mold
     dev-db/sqlite
     media-video/pipewire
     sys-apps/xdg-desktop-portal