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Re: Sending Receiving Fax on Linux server



hi,

try hylafax; i use it and it is quite good. i believe the redhat cd has it
in rpm form. the software is developed by sgi and put out in public (more
or less) domain. basically, it works like a print spooler on the unix
side. there are windows and mac (and of course, unix) clients available (i
have tested the mac client and it works quite well). to all clients, it 
looks like a print spooler. so, windows and mac users see an
additional printer and simply sending stuff to that printer (over the
network)
gets the job done. some cautionary notes are in order. fax modems have
very little memory for buffering, meaning the data has to come in a nice
continuous stream without breaks. in a multi-tasking unix environment,
this poses obvious problems. also, for hylafax, the modem needs to be a
class 2 (or 2.0) fax modem. almost all (cheap) modems available in the
indian market are class 1 fax modems and will not work (if you want
to know what your modem supports, issue the command at+fclass=? and
the modem will respond with what all classes it supports). this is because
class 2 modems have better buffering and timing capabilities which are
lacking in class 1. this is generally not an issue with win machines since
the machine can be locked into the fax process while faxing is in
progress; this is not so easy in a unix environment. there are workarounds
available - but perhaps, not recommended. for the record, i used ppp from
my mac at home and was able to send out fax through hylafax running on a
linux machine in my office. 

sriram

ps: it may be worthwile reading current hylafax documentation. my
information is some years old.

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