[lug] Samba in business

[Rob Nagler]

> The "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" way to do this is migrate
> everyone over to Windows 2000 domain and do everything through there. My
> problem with this is that I know the headache that would be to maintain.

I have used Samba at a couple of clients which are Windows only shops.
Linux is by far more stable than a Windows box.  I was new to Samba,
but had no problems finding the info I needed from the Internet.
Personally, I find Samba's security model clearer than setting up a
Windows server.  Then again, I am more familiar with Linux.

Once you're storing files on Linux, you can do a lot for reliability.
With one client, we are considering mirroring their shared files
off-site over the wire.  While there are products which do this on
Windows, on Linux they're free and more mature, and I'm guessing, more
secure.

I just turned our house network into Samba-based network without a
problem.  This includes sharing my home directory between my Windows
XP box and my Linux workstation.  It's truly amazing with Putty (plink
actually) I can edit in Emacs on Windows and run the files in an Emacs
window on my Linux box.  I even switched my mail client (Emacs VM)
seamlessly from running on Linux to Windows XP.  When I'm off site, I
can login to my Linux box to check mail.  When I'm on site, I read
mail on Windows XP.

The only weirdness I find is on boot.  My Windows XP box won't bring
up the connection to my home directory every time.  I simply have to
login, but it is a minor pain.

Before I start a flame test, the only reason I went away from Linux
was to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  There is ViaVoice for Linux, but
it doesn't work very well.

Rob