Back for another moan

[jselover]

Well the brutal truth of faxing is that is obsolete. Why convert a perfectly good document into a bunch of dots to be faxed, instead of just emailing the document with all fonts, formatting and text intact.

I find it funny that some people then take that fax and run it through OCR software to attempt to get back the fonts, formatting and text again. What a waste of time.

So the reality is that no one has made a new fax front-end in years, and the current ones are basically dormant because there isn't any demand.

There are a number of fax front-end projects just waiting to picked and ran with. Maybe instead of just moaning about it. you could pick one to run with it and contribute.

[mshater]

First, you need to find personal emails for that to be effective. Targeted faxes to someone of appropriate responsibility tend to get a better response. Very easy to ditch an email.

Second, if I had the time to return to programming I might look at it. My last work in that field was DOS with Turbo Pascal. I have an ongoing requirement which I need to attend to rather than writing new software. I am really surprised that it has not been done by now - at least in some decent form which can actually be used.

Like all systems email has its advantages and drawbacks. If it were really so universal then fax would indeed be dead, which is why there are so many printers with fax available.

[Roxoff]

Well faxing is very outdated - I Googled a couple of times for different linux/cups and faxes, and most of the stuff is ancient. I mean it was so old, some of it was still wearing flares.

Anyhow. Faxing is supported by Linux, seems to be in the HPLIP stuff now, try this: How to fax - General notes | HPLIP Knowledge Base. I also found this obscure little list: Send Fax Freeware - Popfax-printer, email2fax, cupsfax ..., the one that caught my eye there was 'cupsfax' the 3rd one down. I've got no idea how reliable any of that stuff is, I've never tried it.

If you're using an internal modem you might find that it doesn't work because you've got what they call a 'winmodem', where half the stuff that should have been in the modem was moved to the Windows driver to save costs and (as it was closed source under license) it didn't get re-implemented it for a libre operating system.

You could also look at the whole fax thing again. 'jselover' is right when he says that faxes are all but dead. If you must have one, there are several printers available on the market that will allow you to print to them and they'll do the faxing for you. That HPLIP site is brilliant for finding out what works and what doesn't in this field.

[Mudgen]

Well the brutal truth of faxing is that is obsolete. Why convert a perfectly good document into a bunch of dots to be faxed, instead of just emailing the document with all fonts, formatting and text intact.

The brutal truth in the universe I dwell in is that some organizations that I have to deal with stubbornly hold on to faxing. For instance, my prescription drug plan and my local pharmacy. Fax, yes. E-mail, no.

[mshater]

Yes believe it or not the world outside the US works differently. Some of us do not have to go to war to learn geography. Nobody can deny the 'nix systems are better than Win but comparing the two is like sending a Challenger tank out to fight a T72. No contest one would think until you realise the Challenger only has dummy ammo!!! For those across the pond Linux is like sending the Nimitz out armed with Wildcats and John Wayne.

I have been around computers for 30 years so I have picked up a thing or two. Linux software clearly shows its heritage. If Win is in high school then Linux is in kindergarten. Presentation of most software is certainly not eye candy. It is frequently unintuitive and would never survive in the commercial world. Many apps appear to have been written by geeks for geeks and would not be accepted in the main desktop market. One of the biggest moans I hear about Win7 is that it is trying to be like 'nix with constant annoying popups about administrator rights. Very good for security and bad for the end user. The vast majority of users are in the home and they just do not want that, they want the thing to work seamlessly. I long for the days when the OS was in ROM and viruses could not exist.

I had hoped to migrate to Linux and keep the Win box for the odd job that Linux could not handle. Unfortunately that has turned out to be a pipe dream. My experience of Wine has shown that i could never trust it with Autocad or anything of that ilk. Even my nice little fax program falls over in Wine on something as daft as failing to import csv files - and other fax progs tried have failed the same way. Files which open in other Linux apps and on Win just either fail in Wine or are reported as corrupt !!! Wine seems to do some odd things. Only to be expected but it means that Linux is simply not up to the mark. Much as I hate Win with the constant crashes of Win7 it does actually do what is wanted.

Linux is good for safe surfing and that is about it. It is seriously deficient in well presented applications. This is probably because apps are written by enthusiasts rather than from customer feedback. What the author thinks the end user wants is not what he really wants.

Yes I do use fax a lot and it is clear that so do a lot of others. My comments above are borne out by the fact that Word mail merge does fax merge whereas Libre Office does not - it does letters and email only. For those who think fax is outdated I would ask you why you would want to use letters. They are even more outdated. At least with fax you know straight away that it has been received - or not. Faxes no not get "lost" like letters. So the out of date argument fails.

So even the open office programs fail to keep up with MS for a lot of us. Win may not be the best, but it gives customers what they want. That is where open software falls down. It is not written with a paying customer in mind, merely a user. That could be a fatal flaw which will allow MS to continue. Apple sells hardware and software is much less important to it. MS lives by software so it HAS to give customers what they want - even if it does fall over on occasions. How many women forgive drunken husbands???

So I have to conclude that, safe web browsing apart, Linux could never take over the job of a Win box until the software available is up to a similar standard. Experience has shown that free is frequently second rate. Kaddressbook is pretty crummy and it is surprising to note that Gnome does not even seem have an equivalent. They are such basic apps that the state of them says a lot about the Linux world. Ferrari engine in a Pinto body ! Goes like hell and falls over at a corner because the handling aint up to it.

[MikeTbob]

I think this thread has run it's course, It's become nothing more than a rant against Linux. I say use whatever you think you need and please stop comparing the 2 OS's before you give yourself a migraine headache. Windows is a good OS for some people, you are probably one of them. Good Luck.