I'm replacing our old Windows XP Pro office server with a HP Microserver running Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.

I'm not a Linux expert but I can find my way around a terminal prompt, I'm a Mac user by choice.

The office use a mix of Windows XP Pro machines and OSX Lion laptops. I included Samba during installation, and I'm planning on using Netatalk for the AFP and Bonjour sharing.

I'd quite like to have samba make the server appear in 'My network places' on the Windows machines the way Bonjour makes it appear in finder on the Macs, if this is possible?

I want to get to a point so that a user logging into Windows, gets connected to the Ubuntu server (do they need an Ubuntu user account?) which get them their shares and their Windows user profile (though a standard profile across users would do).

The upshot is to make centralised control of user accounts (e.g. If a person leaves, killing their account on the server stops their Windows logon and ability to access Samba shares) and to ensure files aren't stored on the individual machines for backup/security purposes.

I want to make this as simple as possible, so don't want to have loads of stuff I don't need, I just can't figure out:

What I need at the server end: - will Samba be enough (already installed as part of initial installation), or will I need to cock around with LDAP (and how does this interact with Samba) - For someone of moderate Linux competence like me, is there a package that offers easy admin of user accounts, e.g. a GUI like phpLDAPadmin (if LDAP is necessary)

How to configure the XP machines: - do I need to have the XP machines set up as a domain controller (I've no idea, really) - roaming profiles looks to offer the feature of putting the user's files on the server rather than the machine itself along with a profile that follows the user from machine to machine.

Syncing Mac user's home folders with the server This is less of a concern because I can set up Time Machine if it comes to it, but I'd appreciate any recommendations of what approach I should take having the Mac home folders synced to the server.