[linux-cifs-client] cifs slow, mand option?

[David Leuser, II]

three questions:

#1:
output from mount shows that my cifs shares are mounted with a "mand" 
option, which i'm guessing means mandatory locking... do i need this?  
do i want this?

#2:
I just realized CIFS existed a few days ago (been using smbfs, which 
isn't working for me right now), is it "safe" to use cifs in a 
production environment?

#3:
I have cifs working on a fc2 box with kernel 2.6.8 and the current 
mount.cifs helper from samba.org;  However, on the inital access of the 
share from x-windows (icewm, rox-filer) it is painfully slow.  Why is 
this? As long as I specify a UID/GID etc in the mount command, the cmd 
line appears to ls, and open files as quickly as expected.  In the GUI 
it stalls and then brings up the directory as though someting timed-out

thanks in advance

- - - -
extra info for #3 listed below if needed

We are using it to connect a linux terminal server to our windows 2003 
domain controller and fileserver... I don't know if any of the 
/var/log/messages output at the end of this mail are related, but i put 
it there just in case, it caught my eye during a tail while i logged in 
and pam_mount automounted a cifs share for me.  These messages don't 
appear when a normal user (not mounting the share) logs in

Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]: [2004/09/23 16:40:57, 0] 
lib/util_sock.c:write_socket_data(430)
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]:   write_socket_data: write 
failure. Error = Connection reset by peer
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]: [2004/09/23 16:40:57, 0] 
lib/util_sock.c:write_socket(455)
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]:   write_socket: Error writing 
194 bytes to socket 18: ERRNO = Connection reset by peer
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]: [2004/09/23 16:40:57, 0] 
libsmb/clientgen.c:cli_send_smb(155)
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]:   Error writing 194 bytes to 
client. -1 (Connection reset by peer)
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]: [2004/09/23 16:40:57, 0] 
rpc_client/cli_pipe.c:rpc_api_pipe(435)
Sep 23 16:40:57 polonium winbindd[6195]:   cli_pipe: return critical 
error. Error was Write error: Connection reset by peer

Sep 23 16:41:39 polonium kernel:  CIFS VFS: No response buffer