Hi,
I send quite a few faxes to clients. As a linux noob, I had quite a bit of trouble setting up a working fax. I spent hours setting it up resulting in quite a bit of frustration. Well, I figured it out! I thought I would help others who are in the same boat.

Now I will explain what I learned:

Programs you need:
cups
openoffice
modem drivers
eFax-gtk eFax with a decent GUI.
lshw

Steps:
1. You will need to find out what kind of modem you have. There are a few ways to do that. Look at the paperwork you received when you bought the computer. There should be a list of hardware, provided you did not throw it away. In command line, depending on your hardware setup, the following commands should help, lspci,lshw lsusb, dmesg.

Once you know what hardware you have you will need the linux drivers for it. Now I can only speak for myself in this area. I have a Dell 5150 laptop with a Conxant modem. Well for the longest time you would have to pay $20.00 for the driver from linuxant. Lucky for me, Dell now sells computers with Ubuntu. Since Dell obviously provides drivers for its hardware, you can now download the driver for free of charge! Yippie! I do not know if the free drivers will work on a non dell system, but you could give it a try. The links are at the bottom of this page.
Anyways, download and install the drivers for your computer.
Next you will need to find out the device name. You should be able to find that out when installing the driver. It will start with /dev/tty.... Mine is ttySHSF0. This is most important. Without it, your fax will never get sent.
Once the driver is installed, in my case, I had to change group ownership ttySHSF0 so that it is usable for users. Open a console (command line)
2. Download and install eFax-gtk, openoffice. Cups should already be installed on your system. See links below.

3. Configuring cups.
Cups the printer program will need to be configured to send the document from open office to the efax-gtk.
While in root mode, open firefox or what ever web browser you use. In the address box type the following which will allow you to setup cups.
In cups do the following: Select Administration > Add Printer.
Type in a name "eFax-gtk " for example.
Location and Description are optional.
continue...
Under DEVICE, select: AppSocket/HP JetDirect
continue...
Under DEVICE URI, type in, "socket://localhost:9900" (no quotes)
Under MAKE select, Raw
continue..
Under MODLE select Raw Queue (en)
Add Printer. Cups is finished. Don't worry about the error after adding printer, there are no printer options.

4. Setup eFax-gtk.
As a user (not root) open a console and type:
Select File> Settings
Type in your name and # you want to show on the top of the fax that you sent. The phone number should not have any dashes. It should looks something like this or you will get an error 201 555 1212.

Modem tab:
This is where you must know what is your device.
Mine is ttySHSF0.
So under Serial Device I type ttySHSF0 or /dev/ttySHSF0
Lock: /var/lock
Under CAPABILITIES: I just leave blank.
If you have problems sending a fax under MODEM CLASS it is best to select either AUTO or Class 1. If unsure select Class 1.

Params tab:
You can leave it as default.If you want to hear the fax being sent you can change Initialization params to Z &FE&D2S7=120 &C0 M1L2 S11=55.

The other params I left as default.

Print and View tab:
I left as default and don't use my computer to receive faxes. I have a separate fax machine for that. I only send the fax to 1. Save paper 2. To expedite things. If someone wants to add to this section, that would be great.

Socket tab:
Select run socket server.
Select port 9900 (since that is how it is configured in cups)
Select local host.

Logging tab:
You may want to add it to either /home/~/fax.logs.
Or you can put it with the other logs in /var/log
You can also use the logrotate option on delete the fax log on a regular intervals. (That is a whole different subject)

Select OK to save settings.

Now in the main efax-gtk screen:
Under fax entry method, select socket instead of file.

5. Test efax-gtk:
This is really simple.
A. In efax-gtk (main screen)select the STANDBY.
You should get a message similar to this:
That shows efax-gtk is able to connect to the driver at device /dev/ttySHSF0.

B. Put a fax in queue:
Open open office.
Type a letter.
Select file>print>efax-gtk. Select OK.
If efax is currently running, a screen should pop up asking for a telephone number to dial to send the fax.
(This confirms that cups and efax-gtk socket is setup properly)

C. Type in a phone number and send the fax. You should be able to hear the fax go through. Call the recipient to see if the fax went through.
(This confirms efax, the device /dev/tty...settings and the modem driver is setup properly)

I hope this tutorial will provide you with some success.

okos


Links:
List hardware (lshw)
http://ezix.org/project/wiki/HardwareLiSter

Linuxant
http://www.linuxant.com/company/
Dell drivers for Conexant modems.
http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/modem-drivers/hsf/
http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=206745

Efax-gtk http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownl...load-3705.html

Open office
http://download.openoffice.org/

Linux questions. Subject,getting sound with eFax-gtk:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...h-efax-607778/

Doesn't look too shabby :}

(I didn't try it - I don't have a need for this)

I think you should submit it here : http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/



Cheers,
Tink

Thats fine with me.
Im not sure how to submit it.
I guess you have to be a moderator?
okos

You pick a section. At the bottom of the page you then find a link
"Submit a Linux Answer to this section"... after that a mod will review
the write-up and approve its submission (or ask you for alterations
if he thinks it's ambiguous or unclear).

Hi Tink,
I tried to submit it with vbcode format but kept getting the following error:
Well the error is persistent. I fiddled around but still cant seem to submit it.

Thanks anyways.
okos

Hi I know this thread is old but I can't seem to get the driver from Dell'Can you advise if there is another download site?

Hi welcome to LQ
Please, always include your distro info (Ubuntu, fedora,slackware, etc...)and info on your computer in order to get the best help.

Here are some links.
http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/h...m-drivers/hsf/

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=206745

With some of the newer kernels, you will need to also download the proprietary driver from linuxant and combine the two drivers to make the dell driver work.

Here is the hack to get dell's hsf modem driver to work.
http://www.kubuntuway.net/forum/showthread.php?t=283

Here are his instructions:
Hope this helps

Here is an update on using a new Lenovo W500 think pad 64bit.
I was unable to find info on the modem card using lshw or lspci. For once I was glad to have kept the windows partition. I was able to find the Windows driver, which enabled me to conclude that I would need a linuxant driver.

The new ibm thinkpad requires both the linuxant hsf driver and the linuxant alsa driver to work. The one will not work without the other on both slackware and debian distros. I first installed the latest hsfmodem....tar.gz driver. hsfconfig will print an error. Reboot. WARNING:You will find that your sound will no longer work at this point. Install the the latest PATCHED linuxant alsa driver. Run hsfconfig. All should work. Your sound should be working again. From what I understand, the sound and modem are on the same card on some systems.

Other problems:
I installed the 64 bit Slackware 13. From what I understand, natively, the 64 bit version of slack does not run 32 bit programs. You will need to set up 32 bit layer. Therefore, since the linuxant alsa driver is not available in 64bit, additional work would need to be done to make slack13 32bit ready. I opted to go back to the Slack 12.2 (32bit) from slack13 for two reason. I really like I really like KDE 3.5 and really dislike KDE 4. Secondly, I did not feel like trying to make things work by adding an additional 32 bit layer to slack64-13. Call me lazy.

In debian, I installed the linuxant deb package. Things still did not work. Apt-get was broken until I ran apt-get -f install. Then everything worked. This will probably also work in other debian like distros such as ubuntu.

btw, in debian I had to compile a newer kernel so I decided to use the same kernel for both slackware and debian, the 2.6.29.6. I figured if it is good for slackware it is probably good for debian. Many of the debian packages are a bit outdated including the default kernel. Here is a link on compiling the kernel:
http://linuxsaga.com/guide/compiling...rnel-in-debian

This tutorial worked like a champ! Thanks for the info. I had it working in about 20 minutes time through an older external (rs-232) modem. I even tested the receive function and it worked great!

Just FYI, I'm running Slackware 13.0 on a 64 bit system. No modem drivers to install for an external modem. Nice and easy!

Hi okos!!
You are fantastic, and your tutorial was great!!!

Since I gave up on getting my internal modem to work in linux
I have been without the ability to fax things. I recently picked up an
antique USR external modem that someone was junking, and it works
just fine with linux. The problem remained that I could not find
any simple fax software. Everything seemed to want me to get a
doctorate in postscript!

Your tutorial was just wonderful. I was able to get everything working
in pretty short order, and am now able to send a fax again!

There are some differences between the way you describe the CUPS "add printer"
function and what I saw, but I assume that is the result of changes in CUPS
between 2008 and now. I hope to write up how it works now and send it in to you
(but please don't hold your breath).

Thank you so much!!
Shimon

OK.. believe it or not, I did go through the Add Printer dialog again,
and here is how it worked in my newer CUPS.

===================================================================================

3. Configuring cups.
Cups the printer program will need to be configured to send the document from open office to the efax-gtk.
Open firefox or what ever web browser you use. No need to do this from root,
CUPS will ask for the root password when it needs it. In the address box type the following which will allow you to setup cups.

Code:

http://localhost:631/

The CUPS page will be displayed. Mine said
CUPS 1.4.6
and showed that I was in the "Home" tab.
The page is divided into 3 columns:
CUPS for Users, CUPS for Administrators, and CUPS for Developers

Under CUPS for Administrators click on Adding Printers and Classes.
This moves you to the Administration tab of the CUPS page.

In the left column (Printers) click on the Add Printer button.
CUPS displays the Add Printer page. Under Other Network Printers:
select AppSocket/HP JetDirect. Click Continue to get to the
Connection page.

In the Connection: field, type: "socket://localhost:9900" (no quotes)
and then click the Continue button to get to name and description page.

Type in a name "eFax-gtk " for example.
Location and Description are optional.
I also left the Sharing option UNchecked.
Click the Continue button to get to the printer make page.

Under MAKE select, Raw, and click Continue for the Model page.

Under MODEL, Raw Queue (en) is already filled in. Just click
on the Add Printer button below.

The Banner Options page will be displayed. Leave both banners set to none,
and click the Set Default Options button.

Cups will tell you: default options have been set successfully,
and then will automatically show you the printer job page, which
says the printer is: (Idle, Accepting Jobs, Not Shared)

You can now continue to the next step.