The detent force caused by the interaction of magnets with the teeth of a armature core deteriorates the driving performance of a permanent magnet linear synchronous motor. In this paper, we analyze the fields and forces of a linear synchronous motor with segmented or skewed magnet arrangement according to lateral overhang length of permanent magnets. For the analysis, the 3-dimensional equivalent magnetic circuit network method is used. The detent force and the static thrust are analyzed according to the segmented or skewed angle and the overhang length of permanent magnets, and the optimal angles that the detent force is minimized are found out in each case. The analysis results are compared with the experimental ones and shown a reasonable agreement.