“A second test version of the next generation of the open source file and print sharing software Samba has been released to the public, with numerous bugfixes and feature improvements included. The Samba suite is an implementation of Microsoft’s SMB/CIFS protocol that allows other operating systems to emulate or interoperate with Windows for the purposes of sharing files or printing. The upgraded Samba software can be downloaded here.”
I seem to remember reading an article a month or two ago about the technology preview in which one of the project leaders (Tridgell?) demonstrated joining a machine to a Win2003 domain as a DC, promoting it to a PDC with a single click, turning off the Win2003 machine and then flawlessly logging into the domain (using the samba server as the PDC). That is pretty frigging cool, in my humble opinion.
Of course, AD still does have a granularity of control and a number of options that are just…well…staggering. Christ, but I hate to admit that.
I’m wondering about the Exchange AD tie-ins and whether Samba4 will be able to handle that side of things (should be possible, I would think, but I haven’t heard anything about it so I am curious).
The Samba suite … allows other operating systems to emulate or interoperate with Windows for the purposes of sharing files or printing.
Samba is a crucially important project that makes Linux practical. Like it or not, we live in a Windows world and we must interact to be productive. Without Samba I doubt there would be half as many Linux users as there are now.
That said, I’m content to wait for version 4 to become stable before I try it.
With Vista being post-pone again, and the release of some criticals Linux project near, I think we can say Samba 4 is another good step against MS.