Airport Express question

[Reid Conti]

Hope someone can help me with this.  I see that the Airport Express
can work with an Airport Base Station or Airport Extreme Base Station,
without being physically wired.  So it can act like a repeater, and
then be used to output your music to the local speakers, no matter
which base station you're actually closest to (and therefore using).

Correct?

Now can it do the same thing with other brand base stations?

I found out recently through David Pogue's column that you can make a
multi-node network by simply setting the SSID and channel of multiple
base stations to the same channel -- cool!  So it doesn't matter what
brand you use, according to him.  But I think this is only when base
stations both have wired connections, it didn't address the issue of
acting like a repeater (or, in my mind, a bridge).

Anybody know?

Looking to pick one up ASAP, but I have a Linksys BEFW11S4 router and
my speakers are in the other room.. I'd like to be able to use the AE
to play music wirelessly, but don't want to have to hop to a wireless
network with no internat access to play music :)

Hopefully my 802.11b gear is fast enough anyway...

- reid