Linksys

From Free net encyclopedia

Linksys is a networking company founded in 1988. It sells wired and wireless products, routers, network cards and USB adapters. Linksys was an early adopter of the 802.11g wireless standard and is a market leader in the United States.

Most products manufactured by Linksys are designed for use in small networks, such as those used in homes and small offices. In 2003, Cisco Systems acquired Linksys and is establishing the company as a brand that is focused on network and VoIP equipment for home and small-business use.

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WRT54G almost open source project

Perhaps the most notable product produced by Linksys was the WRT54G. For cost reasons, Linksys decided to base the firmware upon the Linux operating system, a decision that was to have profound consequences for the entire router industry.

It needs to be understood that consumer level routers consist of a processor and operating system, and that the majority of the features are implemented as software code, with dedicated physical hardware kept to a minimum, to save manufacturing costs.

However, consumer routers, due to their dependence upon software, have been known to be unreliable. If not equipped with a fast processor, they can be slow to direct network traffic. The WRT54G was notable for having a fast processor, but the firmware was imperfect and lacked high-end features.

In 2003, Columbia Law School Professor Eben Moglen pointed out that due to the Linux-based nature of the firmware, Cisco was legally obliged to release the source code to the routers, under the terms of the Linux GNU General Public License, or GPL. After some period of time, Cisco acknowledged its obligation, released the code, and revealed the secrets of how the software code interfaced to the hardware.

This subsequently spawned an open source community, dedicated to modding Linksys router firmware. Modders rapidly learned how to add $600 features to $60 routers. This changed the dynamics of the router market as expectations both of stability and features on the part of consumers increased.

Linksys and other vendors then had to respond, since open source firmware is now freely available for licensing and customisation, which would enable new router vendors to enter the market, without the traditional barrier of having to develop the most complex part, the firmware code. The fact that the best consumer routers are now comparable to what were formerly high-end routers is due to the hard work of the open source community.

The WRT54G series was later changed to use a VxWorks kernel, which reduced the memory requirement for the box. Version 3 had 8 mb of flash, version 4 had 4 mb, and version 5 only 2 mb. Given the low price of flash the manufacturing cost saving is likely to be minimal, but the reduced flash capacity means feature rich open source firmware can no longer be added to standard Linksys routers - only mico builds. Linksys has continued production of a Linux-powered version labelled the WRT54GL, but this is no longer the mainstream product.

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NSLU2 open source projects

The NSLU2 is a network storage device. It does not have much storage capacity itself, but does have two USB ports to allow external hard drives to be attached. There are various projects to enable the usage of Linux on a machine.

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