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161 lines
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<TITLE>Linux Fax for Dummies LG #28</TITLE>
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<!--X-From: "John P. Weiss" <weissjp@monsoon.Colorado.EDU> -->
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<!--X-Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 11:11:53 -0700 (MST) -->
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H1>Linux Fax for Dummies :-)</H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:mv@fgi.fi">Martin Vermeer</a></H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<I>If you are like me, you may be all the time on the lookout for nifty
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little utilities and the like, that might make life easier and more pleasant
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for end users. I came into Linux rather late in the process, February 1997,
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and although I know how to program (and have written a few handy little
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things too, using this great new language<B> tcl/tk</B></I>)<I>, due to
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time constraints, I have felt no strong inclination to join ranks with
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the hacker community. Heck, I never even compiled my own kernel!</I>
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<BR>
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<HR WIDTH="100%">
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<BR>For someone as ancient as me (vintage 1953) it is probably better to
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concentrate on things that I am good at, without requiring a substantial
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investment in time. So, I have been looking around, learning <B>tcl/tk</B>,
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and writting little things that make life easier especially for people
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that are not very computer literate. Because, what is happening now to
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Linux, is that it is gaining a technically less sophisticated user base.
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We should adapt to this. Part of this adaptation is taking place; the new,
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gorgeous-looking desktop environments such as KDE and Gnome are soon becoming
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standard stuff on the Linux desktop, and more and more software is acquiring
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a graphical user interface.<B> tcl/tk</B>, <B>perl/tk</B>, <B>gtk</B>,
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and <B>java</B>, are among the tools that make this possible. <B>tcl/tk</B>
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especially is ideal for "glueing" already existing command-line oriented
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utilities together into great-looking desktop thingies.
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<P>A recommended fax package for Linux is <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">fax/efax/efix</FONT>
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by Ed Casas.<FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"> fax</FONT> is an ordinary
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shell script, containing calls to the binary modules <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">efax</FONT>
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(taking care of the difficult, low-level faxing stuff) and <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">efix</FONT>
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(taking care of some file format conversions needed). They work, but are
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command-line stuff; not for dummies.
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<P>For sending faxes using <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">efax</FONT>
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you can use <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">LyX</FONT>, the graphical
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word processor running on top of <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">LaTeX</FONT>.
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I can really recommend this word processor: especially the new release
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0.12 is great, with lots of new features including on-the-fly localization.
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See the <A HREF="../issue27/ayers5.html">review by Larry Ayers</A> in the last issue of Linux Gazette, and a
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picture (I couldn't resist) below.
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<P><IMG SRC="./gx/vermeer/lyx.jpeg" ALT="[lyx picture]" HEIGHT=393 WIDTH=569>
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<P>For receiving faxes, it is possible to install <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">efax</FONT>
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as a daemon through the bootup script (see man page), so it continually
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waits for faxes to come in. It is even possible to do this in such a way,
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that it does not get in the way of outgoing traffic, e.g. an Internet connection.
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Then, when this connection closes, the deamon starts again listening to
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the serial port.
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<P>Any faxes received will be stored into a spool directory, typically
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(Red Hat)<FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"> /var/spool/fax/</FONT>. You
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can make <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">xbiff</FONT> or <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">xmailbox</FONT>
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look if faxes have arrived into the spool directory, and signal it to the
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user. I haven't tried this, though. There are various ways to read messages
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from the spool directory. Ed Casas' script <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">fax</FONT>
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can be used, but is <I>so</I> unbecoming. I really would love it if there
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was a graphical client to do this!
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<P>So... I decided to do a search, an extensive one, using Alta Vista.
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No luck. Following links, I found a number of listings of fax
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and communication software, including Hylafax, which is a fax server application
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for network use, undoubtedly good, but not what I was looking for. Then
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I decided, OK, it cannot be too hard to write a thing like this myself.
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I started coding, and after three hours or so, I had the skeleton of a
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working graphical fax client running.
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<P>I wanted my skeleton script to use the existing utility <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">viewfax</FONT>
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(a GNU product) to display fax pages on the screen. The program -- found
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in the RPM package <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">mgetty-viewfax</FONT>
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-- is very fast and very convenient, but with a slightly "emacsish"
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user interface. Well, what the heck. I read the man page and found there
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a reference to <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">faxview.tcl</FONT>, a <B>tcl/tk</B>
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"graphical front end" to viewfax. Precisely what I was trying to write!
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<BR>.
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<CENTER><IMG SRC="./gx/vermeer/faxview.jpeg" ALT="[faxview GUI]" HEIGHT=479 WIDTH=444></CENTER>
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<P>I downloaded the <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">faxview-1.0</FONT>
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tarball from the ftp server at <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"><A HREF="ftp://ftp.UL.BaWue.DE/pub/purple/fax">ftp://ftp.UL.BaWue.DE/pub/purple/fax</A></FONT>,
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extracted the files <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">faxview</FONT> (the
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<B>tcl/tk</B> script) and <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">faxview.1</FONT>
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(the man page) from it. It worked great (see picture)! The author of this
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software is Ralph Schleicher from Ulm, Germany. So much for reinventing
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the wheel... this really raises some questions:
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<UL>
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<LI>
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Do we really <I>know</I> all the Linux software that is out there?</LI>
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<LI>
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Are many authors too modest about their products, in other words, do they
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rather keep their software -- even just "scripts" -- to themselves, where
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a professional Windows programmer would have happily marketed commercially
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a Visual Basic script of the same quality?</LI>
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<LI>
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Is it really easy enough to post announcements and even source code for
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new software, for people that have not been part of the "circuit", and
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is the infrastructure in place to make people find the information that
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they need on the existence of such software? Referring to my above
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negative Alta Vista and software list experience.</LI>
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</UL>
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If anyone has any useful software to refer me to, found by accident against
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the slings and arrows of poor posting... let me know! What is your favourite
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"under-advertised" Linux software?
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<BR>
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<P>Martin Vermeer
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<BR><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"><A HREF="mailto:mv@fgi.fi">mv@fgi.fi</A></FONT>
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<BR>
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Martin Vermeer <BR>
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Published in Issue 28 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, May 1998</H5></center>
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