Linksys

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linksys

Type	Network hardware manufacturing
Founded	1988
Founder	Victor Tsao
Headquarters	Irvine, California, United States
Key people	President: Ned Hooper
Products	Network hardware for home and small businesses
Owner	Cisco Systems
Employees	700+ (as of March 2007)
Website	www.linksys.com

A 802.11b wireless Linksys router with a wired 4-port switch.

A Linksys befsr41 DSL router with a wired 4-port switch.

Linksys, founded in 1988 and acquired by Cisco Systems in 2003^[1], sells products for home and small office networks. Linksys also manufactures broadband and wireless routers, consumer and small business grade ethernet switching, VoIP equipment, and other products.

1 WRT54G
2 WUSB54G series
3 NSLU2
4 Acquisition of Sipura Technologies
5 SPA Series VoIP Products
6 SPA Series Phones
7 SPA Series Products
8 Criticism
9 See also
10 External links
11 References

[edit] WRT54G

Main article: Linksys WRT54G series

Perhaps the most notable product produced by Linksys was the WRT54G.

Consumer level routers consist of a processor and operating system, with most the features implemented as software code with dedicated physical hardware kept to a minimum to save manufacturing costs. Consumer routers, however, have been known to be unreliable due to their dependence on software to provide features. Software-based routers not equipped with a fast processor 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.

Linksys decided to base the firmware upon the Linux operating system to reduce costs. Columbia Law School Professor Eben Moglen pointed out in 2002 that, due to the Linux-based nature of the firmware, Cisco was legally obligated to release the source code to the routers under the terms of the GNU General Public License] or GPL. Cisco eventually acknowledged its obligation, released the code, and revealed the secrets of how the software code interfaced with the hardware.

This subsequently spawned an open source community dedicated to modding Linksys router firmware. Amateur programmers quickly learned how to add $600 features to $60 routers. This changed the dynamics of the router market as consumers' expectations of stability and features increased.

Linksys and other vendors then had to respond, since open source firmware is now freely available for licensing and customization, which would enable new router vendors to enter the market without the traditional barrier of having to develop the firmware code. The best consumer routers are now arguably comparable to what were formerly high-end routers.

The WRT54G and WRT54GS series of wireless routers were later changed to use a VxWorks kernel, which reduced the memory requirement for the box. Version 3 of the WRT54GS had 8 MB of flash, version 4 had 4 MB, and version 5 only 2 MB. The reduced flash capacity limits feature rich open source firmware from being added to standard Linksys routers. Linksys has continued production of a Linux-powered version labeled the WRT54GL, but it is not promoted as one of its flagship products.

A reaction to this is the open wireless hardware movement, including OpenPattern,^[2] ^[3] and the Open Flexible Router device.

More recently Linksys released the WRT54GL router which, like the original WRT54G, is based on Linux and therefore easier to upgrade with third party firmware. Although this practice is still not directly supported by Linksys it is an acknowledgment that enthusiasts are still interested in "tweaking" and redefining the multitude of uses of their routers.

The WRT54GS is a newer model of the WRT54G, which looks quite different; the WTR54GS (note the transposition of the second and third letters) is a "travel router" with an integral power supply, suitable for setting up an ad-hoc wireless network in a hotel room.

The Linksys WRT300N series is the successor to the WRT54G series. The linksys WRT300N and all other Linksys N-routers have not yet passed the wireless N standards. Linksys have immaturely released an N-draft router to the market.

[edit] WUSB54G series

Linksys WUSB54G series uses Ralink RT2500 chipsets.^[4]

Linksys WUSB54GC is the Linksys Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter, that can be set up in Linux.^[5]

[edit] NSLU2

The NSLU2 (somtimes called the Slug) is a network attached storage device. It has a 266MHz IXP420 processor with 8MB of flash memory and 32MB of SDRam on the PCB. Externally it has two USB ports to allow external hard/flash drives or a USB modem to be attached and a 100MBs RS-232 ethernet port. There are multiple open source projects based at "www.nslu2-linux.org" designed to expand the cababilities of the NSLU2 allowing it to perform many different tasks such as: Music server, Webserver, BitTorrent Client, Weather monitor (through the use of a USB attached Weather station)and many many more uses. This is possible through the many pakages that can be installed ontop of the base linux (OS) system. ^[6]

[edit] Acquisition of Sipura Technologies

The parent company Cisco Systems acquired VoIP maker Sipura Technologies and made it part of its Linksys division on April 26, 2005.

[edit] SPA Series VoIP Products

With the Sipura acquisition Linksys got into the VoIP business. Sipura products are well tested and feature rich ranging from VoIP PBX to ATA and phones, all the products are SIP v2 compatible but they do have some quirks when Linksys decides to defer from the protocol on some features (ex WMI, Voice Messages).

[edit] SPA Series Phones

The SPA series is basically the original Sipura series SIP compatible phones.

[edit] SPA Series Products

Phones	PBX	ATA	ITG
SPA901	SPA9000	SPA2002-ER	SPA400
SPA921/941		PAP2	SPA3102
SPA922/942		SPA8000
SPA962

[edit] Criticism

While Linksys products are advertised as having a wide array of features and management tools, they are often only available through an IE/ActiveX web interface ^[7]. On these ActiveX dependent products, some advertisements and documentation make no mention of the operating system or browser requirements, leaving consumers to find out that their Mac OS X, Linux and Unix systems are unable to configure the devices, only after they are purchased. A good example of this is for the SRW series switches, where the official documentation^[8] simply states, "Internet Explorer version 5.5 or above is recommended.", on page 42.

Notable offenders:

The SRWXXXX line of managed Gigabit switches, for example SRW2024

Linksys does provide legacy interfaces to configure the devices, however only severely stripped down telnet and serial console interfaces, that only expose the minimum functionality, are accessible directly. It is however possible to exit the menu driven interface and enter a Cisco IOS kind of CLI mode, exposing all configuration options by Serial console, Telnet and SSH^[9].

Linksys has responded to many consumer's complaints simply by stating the following paraphrased positions^{[citation needed]}: