Hi Rony,
For a simple home/office setup I don't think you need a server software
like hylafax. I have the following setup, using which, you would feel at
home if you are looking for functionality like Winfax. All you need is
to install efax. efax is a very small and efficient fax
sending/receiving program.
For sending fax:
1. Printing Web-Pages/Email : If you are using mozilla sofware for Web
and email then printing to fax is pretty simple. In the printer settings
(File -> Print -> Properties -> Print Command) give "kprinter". Mozilla
will directly send the file to kprinter and kprinter can in turn print
to any of the printers that you have set up or directly fax device by
selecting "Send to Fax". This in turn starts the KdeprintFax program.
The converting of source document into postscript is handled by
kprinter. It uses enscript for conversion. But you can change the
default settings.
2. Printing Office documents, spreadsheets, etc.: If you are using
Koffice, then you don't need to do anything else. If you are using Open
Office then run its printer admin program (/path
to/openoffice/program/spadmin). Here you can add another printer. It
will ask you select a driver. Just select "generic", and then in the
next screen it will ask you to "Enter a command line appropriate to this
device". There you should write "kprinter". That's it. In fact, on my
system, it offers me "kprinter" as a ready-made command option. :-) Now
make it your default printer. You're done. In fact, I suggest that you
should use this method only (if you are using KDE) for all your printing
stuff. kprinter is a very good program (my opinion) and takes care of
lot of things. It even works with cups - I haven't had the experience
though as I use LPRng.
3. You can use the above steps for most of the Non-KDE programs.
For receiving fax :
1. Install an excellent program called "efax-gtk". Keep it running and
configure it to receive your incoming faxes. All the possible receiving
options are available. You can keep it in standby (automatic receive) or
answer an already received call (manual receive). You can also fax
existing postscript files. efax-gtk uses "efax" as its back-end to do
the receiving stuff. The best part is that it includes a fixed version
of efax alongwith so you don't have to download it seperately. If you
have already have installed efax, efax-gtk will install its fixed
version as efax-0.9a.
Whether what I have described above is better or hyla-fax is better, I
leave it to the user. Since you seem to be interested in offering your
clients (who normally are home/office users) and who expect things to be
as simple and functional (as a few really good programs in Windows are -
yes there are a few), I couldn't resist writing this mail. If you
remember I had giving a brief description of setting up your Epson
LX-300 printer. I always feel that if Linux is to reach the masses, then
it should have those functionality that the masses need. That requires
effort, but not impossible to achieve.
Regards,
Rajen.
--
http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
