I never really enjoy Samba (who does?) and I do not have Windows machines but I do want easy file sharing with my Mac running OSX Lion. TimeMachine setup is included. The distribution I used this for is Raspbmc, it should work fine on Raspbian but mind the /media directory notes later on.

Updated: 20-06-2013 (ddmmyyyy ofcourse..)

• - Added Read/Write setting

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Netatalk is the file server I use to connect my Mac.
More info: http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/

Installation:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install netatalk

Configuration:

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk stop
sudo nano /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default

Now go all the way down (ctrl-v) and you see:

That's where you can add an extra path. ~/ is the home directory of the current user, I've added /media to to share all my plugged in USB drives (Raspbmc only). You should add /mnt in stead of /media if you use Raspbian.
Then it looks like this:

~/ "Home Directory"
/media "Media"
/mnt "Mount"

Read/Write: Add this to the line starting with EFAULT:

TimeMachine (thanks sonvivant!): Add the 'tm' to this line as shown here:

:DEFAULT: options:upriv,usedots,tm

.

Start Netatalk again with: sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk start
Make sure the user you login with from your Mac has access tot the folder you are sharing on your Pi. Start with just the default Home Directory and take it from there.

The Pi will show up in Finder on your Mac, it usually takes 10 seconds for my Pi to show up after I restart Netatalk.
When you see it in Finder, select it in the Navigation Pane and use the button "Connect As.."
If it doesn't show up, feel free to use the Connect to Server function in finder and use the IP of the Pi. (hihi, funny, the ip of the pi).

You need to use the credentials of an existing user on your Pi. I've used the default user Pi and that's working fine.

That's all folks!

ps. For 'Raspberry to Raspberry' file sharing I use NFS and that's working great.