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Under the covers AD is BIND.

And how much do I go through to make AD and all its workstation management tools work with a OS it was not designed to work with from the outset?

That's the problem. Not everyone works in large IT shops with staff to spare for a project like that. AD + Windows is basically a turn key solution that a smaller outfit or in house IT department can actually muster the time and resources to implement. You pay something for that privilege, no doubt, but it seems a whole lot of businesses, not all of them small, are calculating that it's worth the cost.

Linux based solutions tend to require significant specialization on the part of your staff. That is frequently not an option in a smaller outfit or in house IT department.