[Samba] General Samba question

Gémes Géza
Mon, 18 Aug 2003 17:26:23 -0000

jzemanek@sas.upenn.edu ?rta:

>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