| Previous | Table of Contents | Next |
by Tim Parker
One of the more useful aspects of computers is the capability to take a document you’ve written in your favorite word processor and fax it to someone. This saves time, paper, and effort over the old routine of printing a copy, feeding it into a fax machine, and sending it manually. Fax programs on computers allow you both to send from any application that has a print output feature and to receive incoming faxes from others.
Although the most effective fax programs available for PCs are designed for Windows, several fax utilities exist for UNIX and Linux. You can purchase a commercial fax software package for your Linux system from a number of vendors, but luckily several are free of charge. If you plan to use your Linux system regularly, you may want to consider installing one of these fax tools.
The most commonly used Linux fax utility is called HylaFAX. HylaFAX was written by Sam Leffer and is available free of charge. Rather than a poor imitation of a commercial fax package, HylaFAX is a complete fax reception and transmission system in one and rivals commercial packages in features and utility. HylaFAX depends on the Ghostscript system to handle fax images, so you may want to read up about Ghostscript (if you didn’t already) in Chapter 27, “Programming in C++.”
Most Linux distributions include HylaFAX as part of the CD-ROM set. If you didn’t get a copy of HylaFAX you can download it from many FTP and Web sites. You may find a program called FlexFAX which was an earlier utility that HylaFAX is based on. If you have a choice, go for HylaFAX. For most versions of HylaFax, you’re going to need a C++ compiler as well because only source code is provided. The GNU C++ compiler that comes with most Linux systems is fine.
Tip:
HylaFAX is available from most FTP sites, but the “home” site for the tool is ftp.sgi.com. Check the directory listings for HylaFAX information. Documentation for HylaFAX is available through the FTP sites or on the World Wide Web at http://www.sgi.com.For more descriptions and history of HylaFAX, check out the site http://www.vix.com/hylaFAX.
If you have a gzipped, compressed, or tarred file you need to extract, the HylaFAX dumps contents from it into a temporary directory. For example, if you have the HylaFAX archive HylaFax-v4.0-tar.gz, you would unpack it and place it in a fax directory with these commands:
mkdir /usr/fax cd /usr/fax cp /tmp/HylaFax-v4.0-tar.gz . gunzip HylaFax-v4.0-tar.gz tar -xf HylaFax-v4.0-tar
Perform all these steps as root. Of course, you must substitute the directory in which you placed the HylaFAX archive for /tmp in the above commands. If you don’t want to use /usr/fax as the HylaFAX directory, change those commands to your target directory, too.
After all the files are extracted in your fax directory, you need to invoke the C++ compiler to produce an executable. There may be some important information in a file in the subdirectory /port/linux, usually as a file called README. To compile HylaFAX, issue the following commands (remember you must be logged in as root):
configure make clean make install
There are a bunch of steps that appear from the configure and make commands that we’ll look at in a moment. When you issue the configure command, you’ll see a bunch of messages about which directories HylaFAX should use:
HylaFAX configuration parameters are: Directory for applications: /usr/local/bin Directory for lib data files: /usr/local/lib/fax Directory for lib executables: /usr/local/lib/fax Directory for servers: /usr/local/etc Directory for manual pages: /usr/local/man Directory for documentation: /usr/local/doc/HylaFAX Directory for spooling: /usr/spool/fax Type of uucp lock files: ascii Directory for uucp lock files: /usr/spool/uucp Mode for uucp lock files: 0444 Type of PostScript imager: gs PostScript imager program: /usr/local/bin/gs Default page size: North American Letter Default vertical res (lpi): 98 Directory for font metrics: /usr/local/lib/afm Location of sendmail program: /usr/lib/sendmail Are these ok [yes]?
Don’t change any of these default directory locations because they are used by many other applications in Linux. When you issue the make command, you will have to wait a few minutes while the compiler completes its task because it must pass through several stages and pull files from many locations on your system.
When the installation routine is complete, check to make sure that the directory /usr/local/bin/fax exists and has files in it. If it does, you will be able to use HylaFAX.
| Previous | Table of Contents | Next |