I was looking at a pdf for a LinkySys 8 port switch. It said it supported a bunch of doze OSes. but shouldnt a switch support any OS that has ethernet capabilities?
Printable View
I was looking at a pdf for a LinkySys 8 port switch. It said it supported a bunch of doze OSes. but shouldnt a switch support any OS that has ethernet capabilities?
yes, it should..
Switches operate on layer 2 of the OSI model..
All a switch does is forward frames
based dst MAC addresses.. everything else is
encapsualted inthe data field...
Beware the markelect for madness can it cause ;)Quote:
Originally posted here by wassup
I was looking at a pdf for a LinkySys 8 port switch. It said it supported a bunch of doze OSes. but shouldnt a switch support any OS that has ethernet capabilities?
It's just some drivel that a product marketroid came up with to fill some space in the manual!
yeah thats what i was thinking. a switch doesnt give whats above the layers in the OSI model.Quote:
Originally posted here by gunit0072003
yes, it should..
Switches operate on layer 2 of the OSI model..
All a switch does is forward frames
based dst MAC addresses.. everything else is
encapsualted inthe data field...
It's probably referring to the Windows GUI management program which comes on the disc with the switch.
That won't run on other OS, but it doesn't prevent you connecting non-Windows devices to the switch. All you need is 1 windows box somewhere.
yeah...slarty's right...switches definitely work with any OS but the GUI could be designed to work only on certain OSes. all u need would be one system that is on the approved OS list to do the configuration.
I agree with slarty as well...It is the GUi management software
they are referring to and not the capability of the switch...
good point slarty...Iam used to configuring
switches through CLI/thru console port...
The software that comes with the switch is normally windows only. But unless linksys has made some major changes, they all have a web interface also. All you have to know is the ip address of the switch and then connect to it (ie http://192.168.1.1) and you will have access to it anyway. But sometimes the web interface (not sure if linksys does this or not) has code that will only work with specific browsers. In other words, you couldn't use the old lynx browser to configure your switch.
And yes, any machine that has a standard ethernet card can work with the switch. A switch is smart enough to figure out what speed a card runs at, and slow down if it has too.
umm but why would i need to configure a switch? this isnt a router, its just a full duplex hub. and arent switches/hubs transparent over networks? (i.e. they dont have ip adresses).
does the switch have uplink ports? can you turn on/off an echo port? do you want the ability to monitor the switch? Now a linksys switch probably doesn't have that many options, but if you were looking at a Cisco or 3com switch, its a lot more.
A hub and a switch are NOT the same thing. A hub is just a multiport repeater. A switch actually looks at the mac address of the frames and sends them where they belong.
Wassum,
Read up on switches..Your comment is incorrect..
switches are far from hubs..They are transparent bridges on steroids.
Try the following white paper.
http://www.geocities.com/dinbbil30/lanswitching.htm
cheers