fax program / sending and receiving faxes
 

i'm trying to figure-out what kinda fax program ubuntu comes with... i've been playing with one of the dapper drake beta live cds, trying to get myself accustomed to ubuntu before the real dapper is released, but i can't seem to figure-out how to receive faxes...

i also am not sure how to send them, as i don't have a scanner so i think the xsane thing won't do it for me (i can't get it to run so i'm not sure)... i'm kinda surprised (considering how friendly ubuntu is) that when i open a document in openoffice.org i can't go to "Print..." and then select a fax instead of a printer...

so yeah, basically my question is: how do you receive faxes in ubuntu and how do you send them from within (office) applications??

BTW: my dial-up modem works well with linux (it's NOT a winmodem)...

I'm not going to be much help to you but what program are you using? You can search for faxing program via synpatic. All you need to do is use the search function and type in fax. That should present you with a list of programs that can fax. One thing I like to do when looking for new programs is do a search via synaptic and then use a google search to vist the homepage. Thus, allowing me to read more.

are you saying that my only hope is to find something in the universe repository?? i must say that i find it hard to believe that ubuntu doesn't come with a fax solution included in the main repository...

I have had the most luck with Hylafax for receiving faxes, but I guess (from my experience) it depends on the fax-modem you are using... I had early success sending faxes with efax-gtk but never could get a reliable solution for receiving. After going through many modems that I had around and playing with settings, searching online, etc. I bought a MultiTech MT5634ZPX-PCI refurbished from MultiTech's website for like $50 (U.S.) Which was one recomended on the Hylafax website and I have had near 100% success and incredible speeds since... This was after days, possibly weeks of frustration with various modems I had around... all of which could send ok, but none were close to reliable at receiving...

Both packages can be found via Synaptic or apt-get. Oh, with Hylafax-Server, I have been using KdeprintFax to send faxes but gfax works well also. (also available via Synaptic) For me it all had to do with the modem. As a side note, Hylafax is cool becase you can have the incomming faxes converted to .PDF files and emailed to you... and lots more!

I was also stumped by not having an easy-to-find recommendation from Ubuntu as to what program to run... I would have thought faxing was a basic desktop function.
Anyway, I tried and had great success with efax-gtk (using my winmodem, which needed the slmodem package), which sends ps (and pdf?) nicely.

Hm.. that would be nice if efax could also pretend to be a printer.

Anyway, I listed the subject in the Ubuntu wiki and wrote

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DialupAndFax

If you want to add any wisdom you gain, just click on edit on that page -- this will help others to find Ubuntu even friendlier.