[Samba] New to Samba

[Gary Hostetler]

I am new to samba but becuase I use squid and I want to track my authenticated users I installed samba 3 but keep hitting dead ends on how to add it to the domain etc. I can't seem to even get the smbd to startup. I got swat keying into the smb.conf but it ended up in another directory so I don't think that is configured. I can't even find good documentation to see if samba is even running. I run a fairly large Active Directory. I woldn't mind opening up Samba to do more chores in my domain but not if I can't get it going. What would be the best reference book.
Sorry to ask so many questions but my Google searches did not get me to-the-point info that I need. 
Thanks for any help
Gary Hostetler