Linksys

Linksys is a company founded in 1988 marketing Routeur S with and without wire ansi that traditional charts networks or with the format USB. Linksys was one of the first companies to use the standard wifi 802.11g and it is currently the company leader on this market with the E. - U..

The majority of the Linksys products are rather intended to the private individuals or for the small companies. In 2003, Cisco Systems repurchased Linksys and made to this company a specialized subsidiary in the equipment networks and VoIP for the SOHO.

project Open source of the router WRT54G/WRT54GL

One of the most remarkable routers of Linksys is WRT54G. For questions of costs, Linksys decided to base its Firmware on a system Linux, a decision which had deep consequences on all the industry of the routers.

It should be known that the routers " large public" consist of a Processeur and a Operating system, and that the majority of the functionalities are implemented in a firmware adapted to the material in order to reduce to the maximum the production costs.

However, these routers, because of their dependence to the firmware, are known to be not very reliable. If they are not equipped with a fast processor, they can slow down the traffic network. The WRT54G has a fast processor but the firmware was imperfect and missed advanced functionalities.

In 2003, Professor Eben Moglen of the Columbia Law School announced that because of the programming under Linux of the firmware, Cisco was legally obliged to diffuse the Source code of the router, in accordance with the license GNU, or LPG. Thus, involuntarily, Cisco had to publish the code, and to reveal the secrecies of the interface between the Software Linux and the Hardware Cisco.

An open community source then appeared dedicated to the development of MOD of the firmware of the Linksys router. The developers quickly discovered how to add functionalities to 600 dollars on routers by being worth 60.

Project Open Source of the NSLU2

NSLU2 is a storage unit in network (NAS) for hard drives USB 2.0.

For more information, go on these pages:

  • nslu2-linux.org (in English)
  • Web page of the product on the site Linksys

See too

Related articles on the Linksys products

External bonds

  • the site of Linksys
  • Forum of assistance on the material Linksys (forum.linksys.free.fr)

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