[Samba] General Samba question

[Gémes Géza]

jzemanek at sas.upenn.edu írta:

>Greetings to all.
>
>I am currently a bit of a newbie in regards using Linux and Samba. I have 
>worked for several years in the IT/digital divide sector of the nonprofit world 
>(particularly in regards to utilizing used and refurbished hardware). I am have 
>a couple of CompTIA certs. (A+ and N+) and some experience administering 
>Windows 2000 Advanced Server. 
>
>Anyway to my question....
>
>I am currently working with a teacher at an inner city public high school. 
>Recently the school allocated a significant portion of its budget to building a 
>state-of-the-art computer lab. The room contains 30 machines (Gateway Pentium 4)
>loaded with Windows XP. 
>
>However, the school did not a purchase a server for the classroom. The teacher 
>desperately wants a server in the classroom to centrally hold all student 
>classwork. He also wants to implement user level security on this server as 
>well as centralized domain security for all the work stations. I have procured 
>a Pentium III computer (500 mhz, 256 MB RAM) to be used as a server. Right now, 
>I have the choice of purchasing a copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server or 
>loading it with Linux. My choice will be based price, ease of set up, and ease 
>of administration. 
>
>So the question...can a Linux machine loaded with SAMBA be used as a domain 
>controller for a group of Windows-based workstations? If so, how difficult is 
>the set up and maintenance of the domain? 
>
>Any thought and comments would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Regrards,
>
>Jon
>
>  
>
My personal recomandation would be Mandrake Linux 
<http://www.mandrake.com/> 9.0  with XFS filesystems (newer 9.1 has a 
bug, of handling ACLs)
It is quite self explanatory, and novice friendly, and as powerfull as 
any Linux distro.

Good Luck!

Geza Gemes