Transcript
False meme image that says “bad news ipv4 fans. linus torvalds has announced removing ipv4 support from the linux kernel after the maintainers of the network stack got into a fight over WHAT KIND OF HRT gives the best results. this incident will impact 5 billion people and will make 95% of all network equipment on Earth binnable.” with fake screenshots of the linux kernel mailing list a girl calling another one a slur from 4chan over HRT choices and Linus Torvalds saying he will drop IPv4 support and asking the maintainers to learn to shut the fuck up.
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Followup:
I’m glad that Linus clarified that it was High Resolution Timers. I was honestly thinking they were arguing about Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Given the demographics of Linux devs, it probably would be the latter.
I know! It seemed totally plausible! There is a very odd discrepancy between that and the general population.
Trans people are either writing kernel code or playing hearts of iron 4. Nothing else is allowed.
It ended up that way though
THE TOASTER WILL BE REPLACED.
Fucking legendary quote from Linus.
It’s a shame it’s fake.
do you have proof that it’s fake though
There is the rule number one of the linux kernel: “We don’t break userspace.” Linux has refused fixes for buggy behavior in the past because of this rule. This would most certainly break userspace.
Also the alt text of the original image states this is fake.
Chat, is this real?
Check the alt text.
Aw, dang it. I don’t know shit about IPv6 vs IPv4 other than how it be written, but I wanted some chaos
I’m sure he emails the kernel he works on regularly
A highly nuclear option. I hope that those developers get their act together in time.
this is a joke btw.
I noticed. But sometimes, LT can be a bit explosive, and we all know that devs can be bitches about their code. I would not put it past Linus that he actally threatens some fully nuclear option to bring some boneheads to reason.
Thanks for the alt text & transcript in OP. It’s missing here, though.
Transcript
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [RFC] Remove IPv4 support from kernel, effective next merge window
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2025 10:42:00 -0700
Message-ID: <20250815-drop-ipv4@linux-foundation.org>Hey folks,
After yet another deeply technical and entirely calm discussion about HRT (High-Resolution Timers) that somehow devolved into 200+ replies, personal insults, and at least one GIF of a raccoon, I have decided it’s time to take drastic measures.
Effective next merge window, we will be removing IPv4 support from the kernel. This will both (a) resolve the maintainers’ scheduling disputes, and (b) force the world into the IPV6 utopia we were promised back in 1998.
If you need IPv4 after this point, you can either:
- run an ancient kernel from before the change (good luck with the bugs), or
- rewrite your applications to use IPv6 and learn to love colons in your addresses.
Yes, I realize this will break roughly *everything *.
No, I don’t care. I have already switched all my machines to IPv6-only, except for the toaster, which unfortunately still insists on using a 192. 168. x. x address. The toaster will be replaced.If you disagree with this decision, I suggest you take it up with the HRT maintainers. But please keep it civil this time. (Or at least keep the raccoon GIFs under 1MB.)
- Linus
What a bunch of babies. They can’t work together so they make the world suffer.
Got it
Edit. I looked. It’s a joke. They got me. I’m leaving this to show my shame
Is the raccoon gif real?
none of this is.
Truly a Solomonic decision.
Truly a legend, if true
Well I’m not going to switch away my perfectly functional mesh routers that uses IPv4 as using IPv6 on a local net that I may sometimes need to type in manually is rather stupid. And that would also bin my routers, so I’m not doing that either.
Oh well, I guess it’s been fun guys, no more Linux for me due to potential future security issues.
Do you even DNS?
No. But if this is true (which I do doubt completely, Linus can’t be this dumb to singlehandedly cripple his OS), this should also affect every intranet address.
The current description of IPv6 intranet is just ridiculously dumb anyway. Should I want to ssh into a local device, I’ll have to type in for example
fd9e:9aa0:c00f:1::a, with only thefdpart being the same for all intranets rather than192.168.1.10with192.168generally always being the same.Edit: wait… Are you telling me to set DNS redirects on all my local devices? Yeah, that’ll work, but why the even…
I don’t think I’ve entered an IP address for a local device in years. Everything is accessible using
<hostname>.localthanks to mDNS. Avahi has been doing this for… 20 years I think?Cool. My mesh doesn’t have that though (I think?). But admittedly that’s a tangent. If IPv4 ever depreciates, I’ll have to toss my mesh anyway.
Pihole automatically adds clients that get an IP from its DHCP component. All my clients are server.local, client1.local, tv1.local, etc. So I can use their DNS name everywhere.
Even if it don’t want to use pihole(why?), you can edit the SSH config and add addresses for each host so you can just type
ssh serverI think ipv4 for internal networks is fine.
wait… Are you telling me to set DNS redirects on all my local devices? Yeah, that’ll work, but why the even…
What do you mean by that? I’m pretty sure people are telling you to run a DNS server and set up entries for any clients you want to regularly connect to.
with only the fd part being the same for all intranets
Why?
if this is true (which I do doubt completely
I really want to believe that you doubt it completely.
Yeah, I really have put too much time into replying to all these based solely on a hypothetical. But I did learn something from all these comments (technical something, not me being an idiot), so it’s all good.
You will do as you’re told!
Yes daddy!
I think it is more likely that 95% of network equipment supports IPv6
Except whatever brings internet to my apartment apparently
Your ISP needs to setup IPv6 which isn’t trivial to do from scratch.
What provider is it?
Mine is Quantum Fiber, a sister of CenturyLink. CL has it, apparently QF doesn’t. Or at least not natively, rather 6rd. And then possibly not on the modem they installed? At any rate, I haven’t been able to find anything online.
I’m on one of the regions of fiber that CenturyLink spun off to a private equity firm a few years ago. Zero IPv6 support here
It should have IPv6
Odd
🤷🏼♂️ When I had CL I could turn it on by enabling 6rd and it worked as expected. When I moved across town and got QF, their instructions didn’t account for it and following the same online instructions for CL don’t work. Others online seem to not have had any luck either, but some people’s comments make it sound like it’s the modem.
Maybe this is the push that finally makes IPv6 go mainstream!
Nah, IPX is gonna take over.
What’s IPX?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internetwork_Packet_Exchange
Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is the network-layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol suite. IPX is derived from Xerox Network Systems’ IDP. It also has the ability to act as a transport layer protocol.
The IPX/SPX protocol suite was very popular through the late 1980s and mid-1990s because it was used by Novell NetWare, a network operating system. Due to Novell NetWare’s popularity, IPX became a prominent protocol for internetworking.
(Just to be clear, IPX is not going to take over, and my above comment was intended to be humorous.)
Let’s fire up a token ring!
(Thanks for the info)
Just got to wait your turn to get the packet
I only got the joke due to starwars pod racer, thankyou pod racer! The ancient pc version allowed you to play upto 8 people on a local network, but box requirements states it needed to be IPX. I have a dream of making a 8 player VM machine in one portable box for parties
It’s IPv10, which binds IPv4 and IPv6 together (4+6=10), sometimes known as Dual Stack.
What’s IPX?
I once asked my college professor of computer networking to explain IPX to me and this was the response I got.
I’m kind of weirdly horny for Torvalds making unilateral decisions about long running controversies? Tell me what standards are best kernel daddy.
Maybe next he can ban tabs and ‘\t’ from Linux? Everyone indents with spaces now, debate over.
I’m sorry, WHAT? SPACES???
You ever find yourself lost for half a day indenting 1000+ lines of code in a random script you opened because the original developer was lazy?
I’d never do such a thing manually. I’d toss it in a formatter and call it a day.
No
Me neither. I’d use sed.
:%s/sed/vim/g
(As a lover of mixed-style and chaos in general, I picked what seemed like the “normiest” option for maximum impact, haha)
Picking the wrong option can be the way to go, sometimes. I used to pronounce it gif, but I switched over to gif instead, and now it’s just how it be
Seeing as we had a rant only a year or two ago about him (potentially) banning some language (or IDE? I don’t remember) from the kernel if it couldn’t cleanly handle tabs and spaces, I don’t think he’s going to ban tabs.
Wait, as I typed this, I think I remember it better now. He was actually going to start using hidden tabs to fuck with people’s IDEs that didn’t handle them well.
As long as IPv2 support remains intact, I’m good.
/s
Not today!
Tap for spoiler
Thanks, Voyager
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I need to inflict this reply upon others. It is so gloriously cursed out of context. And in context too.
My dream. IPv6 adoption would skyrocket to a degree unimaginable and those who don’t want to, will fall behind unless they move their asses and learn.
A major ISP in the UK still doesn’t have any IPv6 support :( https://www.havevirginmediaenabledipv6yet.co.uk/
I still don’t have an IPv6 address over 4G with Vodafone. I want to run a web server on my phone, isn’t this a normal use case? Nat444 makes that pretty difficult, just let me use IPv6!
That’s impressive
Scaling NAT is complex and expensive. They are literally making it harder
Cabled from Vodafone is not much better, ip6 does auto configure from the router with a local address, so it at least supports it. but no routable ips yet.
Actually on someone else’s network right now and think it’s cabled Vodafone and I do have IPv6. Only got android to play with right now though, apparently Vodafone are tight bastards for the range of addresses you can get.
Edit: version of Android I am on only let’s you set a static IPv4 address, what a shit operating system
They give 2 options: “Sign the petition” and “Tweet them!”, but you could also just en-masse “Switch providers” and make them rethink their strategy.
I wonder if that site pings an IPv6 address on the virgin network and updates the output automatically based on the ping result.
I’m on Spectrum in the US and their “support” is somehow worse than just not having IPv6. Tons of dropped packets, shifting IP address ranges, and overall a lot of headaches. Tried everything I could to sidestep the issues but there was nothing doing. Eventually I just disabled IPv6 and the issues went away. Maddening.
Do you want to play a game?
IPv4 killed my parents.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Can confirm, I was IPv4
ipv6 is great for public networks/ wan or extreme large nets. but for a small local net, ipv4 is so much easier if you need to access a single device. if ipv6 is parallell too, great but I hope ipv4 wont be disabled/ non existens in the future bc of this
I need to make sure you know this is a joke
I need to be told as well.
Tell me. Tell me now, or I torch my fiber modem!
Nobody tell them.
IPv4 isn’t compatible with IPv6
I actually would argue that IPv6 is better even for small networks since it has SLAAC
There’s almost certainly no future where IPv4 goes away. Not unless people abandon the Internet entirely and look for some alternative built on IPv6 from the start.
You got me in the first half 😁
As a modest proposal, let’s just kill anyone who disagrees. These troglodytes had long enough time to get on speed with the world and human progress cannot further afford individuals unwilling to adapt.
Renewal! Progress! Electrification!
Moderates nowadays be like:
Maybe this will move my ISP to provide IPv6.
Please, at least 85% of that network equipment hasn’t been updated in 30 years and they’re not about to start now.
screams in salt typhoon
