You've confused the heck out of me too with your "hacking"
. Duplicated IP (of your desktop on the Linksys), and a cloned MAC address (on which device)...WTF and why? In a nutshell, the Linksys should be your DHCP server (for the laptop), and will also be the gateway router into both your "private" network and the Internet in a "typical" network routing configuration. Have you consulted your network guys/gals?