TranscriptFalse 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.

Source: https://rivals.space/@deuxnise/115032302416832519

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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[+] [S] 247 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (35 children)
  • [–] 203 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I'm glad that Linus clarified that it was High Resolution Timers. I was honestly thinking they were arguing about Hormone Replacement Therapy.

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  • [–] 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Given the demographics of Linux devs, it probably would be the latter.

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  • [–] 120 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    THE TOASTER WILL BE REPLACED.

    Fucking legendary quote from Linus.

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  • [+] [S] 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    do you have proof that it's fake though

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    A highly nuclear option. I hope that those developers get their act together in time.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (9 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    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 the fd part being the same for all intranets rather than 192.168.1.10 with 192.168 generally 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...

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't think I've entered an IP address for a local device in years. Everything is accessible using <hostname>.local thanks to mDNS. Avahi has been doing this for... 20 years I think?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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 server
    
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    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?

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