"If you have Windows PCs on your home network and have no pressing reason to use NFS (Network File System) support to share files, then read no farther. NFS is actually more robust than Samba, but it is also more complicated depending upon what features are used.

From a basic point of view, NFS and Samba are very similar. Both have a client and server application. Both allow a server to share files with clients. Both have clients and servers on almost every platform. The big difference is the Windows PCs have Samba-compatible clients and servers as part of their default network support and Windows requires third party software to support NFS. Conversely, UNIX systems usually come with and use NFS by default with Samba being used to provide file sharing with Windows PCs.

Perhaps the biggest difference between NFS and Samba is that NFS uses an explicit resource browser capability. This means that an NFS client can poll a particular server using the showmount program, as in showmount -e fileserver, to see what directories have been exported. Samba clients do this as well using NetBIOS but they can also determine what servers are available as well. The showmount program must be given the domain name or IP address of the server."

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