> Q: What does IPv6 do for the so-called average user?
A: IPv4 has deficiencies that are about to make it break. IPv6
addresses these as best as the designers could see possible.
For instance, IPv4 has an address space of 2^32, or 4,294,967,296,
addresses. That's a few billion less than there are people on the
earth, or thereabouts, and we double every 60 years anyway (remember,
half the people ever alive still are, or are dead, or however you
prefer to look at two halves). At first glance 4,294,967,296 looks
like a big number, but if your base is today's population, then it
looks rather smallish (less than 1).
There are a few other things it does too, but I forget at the moment.
Pedro's reference to http://playground.sun.com/ipng/ is a good one.
(Plus I also started a FAQ
(http://www.{q.net,{armory,panix}.com}/~ulmo/linux/ipv6/), and I have
lost time to write it; I have looked for a new maintainer, and Eric
Osborne <osborne@notcom.com> has taken it up; he will likely announce
a URL soon.)
This is one of those "you will convert or die" things, and because of
the ominousness of that, the designers have made IPv6 as *comfortable*
as possible for the conversion process. It specifically designs
compatibility with IPv4 into its workings so that the two can happily
coexist for some time to come. This leeway is intended to last so
long that no one will even get bruised during the process.
Kinda like eating dinner. You'll have to do it eventually, as part of
the cycle of life. Nothing to fear, or not much anyway ...
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