A file server running on Linux with Samba is an attractive option to reduce license cost. Samba configuration is easy enough. To get the user permissions right, you will need to join the Linux server to the Active Directory domain.
You will need to an administrator to the Computer OU, set the Samba options in the SMB.conf file. Note you have a weird domain name, eg abc.contoso.com whereas the NetBIOS is xyz, you will need to change the workgroup name in the config file.
Once completed, use wbinfo to test. You should be able to enumerate all the domain users and groups.