The in-kernel CIFS filesystem is generally the preferred method for mounting
SMB/CIFS shares on Linux. More information on Linux CIFS is available at the
Linux CIFS VFS site.
Although not really part of Samba proper, these tools were originally part of
the Samba package. For several reasons, shipping these tools as part of Samba
was problematic and it was deemed better to split them off into their own
package.