Hi Folks,

after googling around quite a bit I wasn't able to find a solution to
my question, so I am asking the community for an advice / help:

I am running a private network at home with a RH9 Router, RH9 Samba -
/ DNS - / and Mail server as well as a Solaris Sparc HTTP Server since
some years now, but without a GUI but a command line login instead.
At the moment I have connected 2 Notebooks and 4 Workstations, all
with Windows XP Professional, (no local users except root, working
with a Domain login at the samba server) and I am fed up with Updating
/ antivirussing etc. with the MS operating system.
I thought of changing all the Workstations over to Unix and kicking
out MS.
The major software used on the Workstations is also available in the
Unix World (Star Office, CD - Burning Software, Graphical Tools,
Multimedia Software, Mailers etc.) and for the few programs which are
not there is wine, which hopefully can handle the rest.
I just installed a freshly formatted SCSI HD in one of the
Workstations to test wether my idea would work out practically.

First of all there is the Question of the operating system to use:
Should I use Solaris 9 X86 or RedHat 9?
The Operating Systems GUI should be easy to handle (for my wife an
kids who are used to the MS Stuff).
Surely this forum isn't the best to ask this question but possibly
someone could give me some hints on that too.

Then, the next and for me most important thing is:
What do I have to do / what software do I need to have an equivalent
to the MS Domain Logon?
I want to (keep, as I have it now) 1 passwd with the actual users on
my central RH9 Fileserver (Samba PDC), so that I doesn't have to
bother with local logins on the Workstations.

Does anybody has some advice for me?

Axel Dahmen