Installing Linux at a 150 student school

[smiles49090]

I am a tech director at a small 150 student school. We are currently running win98se and have a NT 4.0 server. I would like to install Linux on a IBM E-series 340 server. It has dual P3 1 gig processors and (3) 36gig harddrives with 1 gig of ram. I'm thinking Ubuntu for the distro, but I'm not sure how to set it up to allow the students to have a home directory on the server as well as a shared drive. I also need to get the DSL modem and linksys router connected correctly to the network to allow them internet connectivity using firefox. I would like the router to handle the DHCP for internet connectivity but I don't know exactly how Linux will work with the workstations and the files sharing. Basically I'd like it to work like an XP operating system that logs into a windows domain and has anomyous internet access.

[darken]

I suppose Samba can do everything you need
Samba (Wikipedia)
Project Page
Howto & Tutorial