Shoutbox

so I just set up my fileserver, and I'm using freeNAS, my problem is that the host name does not resolve in the way I would like it to,
it resolves fine on windows boxes using NETBIOS but on unix machines it requires a .local suffix,
I could change that with the use of a DNS server correct? I want something like an internal DNS server so that it resolves all the internal names then resolves external ones, if I do that do I then need to set up a custom DHCP server to enforce the new DNS server? and will the DHCP server broadcast or something or does the router need to point to it?