Hi,

I am just starting my second semester on the Cisco CCNA Curriculum and as many of you would know, it's all about routers.

I am thinking about getting a small router for me to practive with and I was checking the Linksys home and small office router thatt sells for US$ 75.00.

A friend told me I had to get the cable modem too witch sells for US$80.00 so it's a quite an investment.

Do you think it's a good idea and do I need to buy the cable modem too, or can the router be connected directly to the ADSL or Cable?

If by the cable modem you mean the Linksys one, no you don't have to buy theirs. If you mean a cable or dsl modem in general to access the cable or dsl then yes. You plug the cable or dsl modem into the wall and then plug the router into the modem.

I own a Linksys cable modem (BEFCMU I belive) and a Linksys Router/Wireless AP (BEFW11S4) and they work very well together. No problems at all, so I would have to recommend both to you (especially if you are going to mess with wireless along the way.)

Have fun!

-biosx

The Linksys won't meet your needs, the closest thing that will help you with your CCNA will be IPTables. Get yourself a second and third NIC ($5.00/pc) and create routing scripts. The CCNA will be a breeze once you understand this stuff. I took the boot camp in May and only 3/12 passed (I was one of them). They have simulators that mimic the router performance/interface. Learn the difference between where and how things are stored on the router. Understand sub-netting, especially Class B and C networks. They will give you questions like...Your boss needs 5 departments with 10 computers in each, which is the best subnet solution and then they give you mulitple guess answers. Or go to eBay and bid on a 2500/2600 but that will run you close to a grand the last I checked.

Good luck,
needamiracle

needamiracle is correct. Having a Linksys router won't help you at all in studying for your CCNA. It will be hard to get a 2500 or 2600 series router so try and get a 1600 series. Their cheaper and you probably get drop in module to add an extra Ethernet interface for a total of 2. Try and obtain the RouterSim router simulators they will help. Although I doubt that "crash-course" will give you much in the way of extra materials. If belong to the academy thats a different story. (materials up the wazoo) Also check out routergod.com for some specific Cisco IOS skills.

--tarballedtux