Server questions

[jperez]

Okay, so, I'm kinda still new to Linux even though I've been using it on and off for a few years since about 2001. Now, I have a couple of questions, but first the premise of what we're looking to do.

I'm working as a volunteer at my local Salvation Army and the Tech Support Director is looking to have server set up with active directory in Linux with it being a domin controller since we basically can't afford a Windows Server, and wouldn't want to use that anyway. He was thinking of using Samba on a Linux box to create user accounts for all the laptops in the lab for users to have their own account and space on our NAS. So, here where the questions come in:

1. After some reading, it seems that Samba does in fact support (although limited) domain controller functions. How would that work or is there a good place to find that information (also good for the learning process).

2. What's the best distro to do this with? Should include a GUI that makes it easy to work with.

3. What would the minimum requirements be for the distro/arrangement we're looking to use/do?

Thanks for any replies.

Jesse~

[Rubberman]

You are probably better off using OpenLDAP for directory services, which will support single-sign-on from your Windows or Linux systems. I think you can configure Samba to integrate with that for user authentication as well, though I haven't personally tried that.

[lasyn]

Recomended easy to use, sigle signon
389 Directory Server with Fedora Directory Server
with Interface user friendly