Fax as printer in cups

[James Freer]

On 4 January 2011 06:50, Mike McMullin <mmcmullin at cogeco.ca> wrote:
> On January 3, 2011 05:19:40 pm James Freer wrote:
>> On 3 January 2011 16:03, Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Mike McMullin <mmcmullin at cogeco.ca> wrote:
>> >>  Is it possible to configure a fax modem as a printer in CUPS, shunt
>> >> jobs to it and have it launch the appropriate fax user interface?
>> >>
>> >>  Failing that, where's the docs on setting up a fax/server in 10.04
>> >> desktop?
>> >
>> > On this netbook running  Ubuntu 10.10, I went to the System --> Help
>> > and Support menu and searched for "fax." The first item indicated the
>> > package is called efax-gtk, which should do what you want, as long as
>> > you have a supported fax modem. It may take some work to get the setup
>> > working as you expect, though.
>> >
>> > A few weeks ago I needed to receive a fax, so I created a new phone
>> > line with my VOIP provider and connected an older Macintosh laptop. I
>> > was surprised it did exactly what I needed, including forwarding the
>> > received documents via email. The old Mac is new enough to be using
>> > CUPS behind the scenes, and of course its own internal modem was
>> > completely supported.
>> >
>> > YMMV :-)
>> >
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>>
>> I've used efax-gtk for several years now and not had any problems -
>> although you do have to convert to pdf first. However, i do find it
>> best to use efax for receiving (you can use any one of a number of
>> such services - free!).
>>
>> I did try and configure a winmodem which was recognised in linux but
>> quite frankly it's not worth the time. Much better to just buy a
>> serial hardware modem which i found worked immediately and cost little
>> more than £5 - new on ebay (i bought two to be on the safe side!).
>>
>> I find fax very useful and use it a lot despite some folk claiming
>> it's old technology. Fax is secure and email is not - and you know
>> it's always received. Most of the time folk email me back so i don't
>> receive many.
>
>  I have an older model USR Fax/Voice/Data modem, which I had set up under
> OpenSuSE, I know this works with Linux, but setting up hylafax was a bear, and
> I was hoping that despite it being "ancient" technology some advances might
> have been made.  Googling for 10.04 and fax setup yields very little results
> of any worth.
>

I found hylafax difficult to set up and switched to efax-gtk which i
set up in about 5 mins. [hylafax has better functions iirc but hardly
worth the time to set up]. efax-gtk is just what i want... simply an
electronic fax machine rather than the mechanical machine one buys off
the shelf (which leaves ghastly lines sometimes down the pages or runs
out of paper which isn't cheap!). Only problem i had was using the
linux acrobat reader... somehow it didn't like the fonts (which were
only Times or Arial that i used - far better to stay with evince.

One thing i do after i've set up an app is to 'take screenshot' of all
settings just to be on the safe side for the future. I can post these
if that would help with the efax-gtk route.

james