Petition for disabling IPv6 in the standard installation

Hi Rick,

On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 09:45:04AM +0100, Rick Rocker wrote:
> 
> 
> Dear devs of Ubuntu,
> 
> I live in a industry state(Germany) and I use one of the
> most known ISPs. I am a average-Joe-user and all
> my friends are also average-Joe-users. 
> This I write to give "my" problem a broader context: IPv6
> in the standard installation activated.
> 
> I have no IPv6 hardware, my friends have no IPv6 hardware,
> and as I know the ISPs of Germany have also not IPv6 "activated".
> 
> Can you please deactivate IPv6 from the standard installation?

I do not *personally* beleive that would be suitable, please read below
for my reasons.

> Every new installation of Debian(Ubuntu) gives at first a very
> slow connection until the average-Joe-user goes and removes
> the ipv6 modules and deactivates the ipv6 usage in Mozilla.

Having IPv6 be the cause of 'slow' connection is actually a common
misconception, reinforced in that disabling some IPv6 features may help
mitigate the problem, in most cases it is the result of bad network
configuration.

IPv6 itself does not in any way slow down your connection, problems will
arise however if you have a route out to the IPv6 internet but it is not
operational, as the browser will try to connect and it will take a while
to time-out, note this would also happen with a bad IPv4 internet
connection.

Another cause in the past has been bugs in programs (e.g. mozilla) that
do the wrong thing internally, most of the major problems here have been
fixed.

As above, these issues would *only* happen if the website you are trying
to connect to has an IPv6 address associated.  Another cause can be
having an IPv6 name-server configured in resolv.conf or similar, in
which case the problem would arise if you were trying to connect to
*any* address.

Most people do not have a problem with having IPv6 enabled, it
simply is un-used when not in use.

> 
> What I does not understand is why is it activated as there is
> very little support of this thing!?
> 

There is 'little' support because we are currently in a 'transition'
phase, where over time people will come to use IPv6, if it is disabled
everywhere, obviously this transition will be hindered. (It will,
however, probably be many years before a migration to IPv6 is at a point
of actually being a mass change)

> That Debian has it activated I can understand because they make
> a distro for everyone (admins, devs, users) but I does not understand
> it in the Ubuntu case as this is a distro for Joe-average, isn?t it?
> 
> And see it from this side: If someone today needs IPv6 then this person
> is something like a admin or a developer, he will know how to activate it
> after the standard install. All other persons (I think) does not know
> how to disactivate it AND does not need it AND all they get is a slow 
> connection.

If you are having problems, it is likely due to some kind of
misconfiguration, you would need to diagnose that.

In particular, the commands 'ip -6 route' may help, it will indicate if
you have any routes to the broader IPv6 world (look for '2000::/3' and
'default' routes).  THis may be caused by an incorrect router on your
network, or by using tunneling software (such as tspc from
freenet6.net), or a number of other reasons.

If that is not the case, you may wish to ask on the ubuntu-users list
(or you may e-mail me privately) and I will attempt to help you diagnose
the issue, as I would be personally interested in finding a solution for
other people that are bitten by this problem.

Cheers,
Trent

> Can you, please, remove this from the standard install?
> 
> Thanks for your work
> your humble
> debian_noob
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-- 
Trent Lloyd <lathiat at bur.st>
Bur.st Networking Inc.