The recommendations are getting very good at the end here.
First, start with fresh installs wherever possible and add boxes to the network one-at-a-time. Each time you add a box to the network and assign its IP address (look this up as suggested above if you don't know what it is) ping the other boxes to be sure there is basic connectivity between the machines. At first, you will not need DNS. Of course, as you build boxes, you must be sure that you see the nework interfaces come up during boot (using Red Hat 9.0, I get a message about bringing up Eth0, my first Ethernet card). Once you have a set of networked boxes that can all ping one another, then you can start working on the DNS issue. Since, I haven't done this in a Linux environment, my best suggestion is to read the available literature out there on the Internet (Google, past postings on linuxquestions.org, the distro manuals, etc). Once you have DNS working, then I would turn to the Samba issues. I would definitely restrict your first efforts to a single Linux box and your Windows box. Once you have two computers working together using the SMB protocol, you can work on the rest of your network.

Remember, the key to troubleshooting engineering problems is to restrict your focus as much as possible. Try to isolate each problem and only deal with one problem at a time. Also, definitely try to rule out causes of problems in an incremental fashion, which helps you to narrow down the field of causes.

This also applies to seeking help from others. In order for us to help you, we need you to explicitly describe each problem in a very focused and detailed manner including the desired goal. It is much too much to ask people to solve a problem that is so broad as "help me set up a network." Instead, give us problems for which you need help that are as narrow as, "please help me get my Ethernet card working," or "please help me get IP working on my Ethernet card," or "please help me to mount a Windows share on my Linux box (include the circumstances: OS versions, sharenames, that you can ping back and forth, that the share is accessible from other Windows boxes, and all other pertinent details)."

I hope this proves helpful. I know that if you don't give up, you will come out of this process with a tremendous amount of knowledge and satisfaction. I appreciate your frustration, but there is a way out. Persevere and work on learning how to ask for help and how to problem solve as much as you work on learning Linux or Samba.
Eric