Small Office - Domain Control or Standalone?

[pentode]

I'm looking at converting an old Windows 2000 server to a Samba server for a small office with three Windows XP systems, one Vista system, and about four networked printers/plotters. Everything is in one location. The server is presently used for file serving and as a print server. We keep all of our project files on the server, accessible to everyone.

The Windows 2000 server is running Active Directory. Because it's a small system, I'm wondering if it is worthwhile setting up the new Samba server as a domain controller or just a standalone server?

 

[TonyGroves]

Setting Samba up as a domain controller is simple and works very well, for Windows XP and earlier at least, but I don't know how well it handles LDAP (Active Directory). You might also want to check your particular printers for Linux support, at linuxprinting.org .