Re: flexfax: Hylafax rpm issues

[Julio C Spinelli <spine001@gold.tc.umn.edu>]

I fully agree with all your points, as I was seeing the emails on the 
RPM I was thinking of the nightmare that it was going to create on 
the users. If they have gotten confused for the warning messages on 
egetty...... That is only a hook...

I didn't intervene in the discussion because I thought that it was an 
effort sponsored (at least spiritually by Sam).

Please feel free to post this if you see it fit.

On another token, who is working on the patch? Why? I am having a 
problem while using egetty. After returning and after hylafax starts 
to answer in fax mode, I get a write error when hylafax attempts to 
write to the modem and then it apparently quits answering in fax mode 
and goes to reset the modem and wait for call again. In my real time 
experience, I never try to deal with hardware like modems only once, 
I would suggest that we should attempt to do Sys::write(fd,.....  , 
at least 10 times with 1 ms intervals if an error is reported by the 
system. In my case it is reporting errno 5 (busy resource). Similarly 
when the modem reports a response that is not the expected one, 
hylafax could be made more robust if the unsuccessful command is sent 
at least five times. Don't ask me why, but I've seen USR modems 
require this at times to respond to a command, the instances that I 
saw were during voice command mode.

By the way, I am using hylafax 4.0pl1, and before I start changing 
the source I would like to know if this has been fixed or if it will 
be fixed in the patch.

Thanks in advance for your consideration of my questions!

Best regards,

Julio C. Spinelli
Professor EE dpt. UMN

> From:          Steve Williams <steve@genie96.com>
> Subject:       Re: flexfax: Hylafax rpm issues
> To:            juvvadi@lekha.org (Ramana Juvvadi)
> Date:          Tue, 21 Oct 1997 16:52:35 -0600 (MDT)
> Cc:            flexfax@sgi.com

> Hi,
> 
> First, let me say it is nice that someone is willing to spend the time to
> put together a "rpm" for Linux.  
> 
> My second question would be..., are you willing to support it yourself
> for the next eternity?
> 
> I have been involved with HylaFAX since the old FlexFAX days.  It has been
> wonderful that for many of the issues involved, it didn't matter what
> platform the software was installed on, because all platforms were basically
> alike.  I have been the Beta Binary person for AIX for ages.
> 
> I knew where I could recommend someone to look if there was a problem, 
> regardless of the operating system.
> 
> You are reducing the ability of the mailing list to support Linux users of
> HylaFAX by arbitrairly deciding to do things that are specific to your 
> implementation.
> 
> It might come down to the point of "I don't know, contact Ramana, the guy
> who set up the RPM", because I have no idea where the "hfaxd.conf" file 
> is installed when they use your RPM.
> 
> One MAJOR issue I have is that you are recommending that people NOT RUN 
> FAXSETUP & FAXADDMODEM ???
> 
> WHAT???
> 
> These programs do EXTENSIVE testing of the system to ensure it is set up
> properly.  They probe the modem & make most of the decisions for the end user.
> 
> IF THEY CAN'T PROBE THE MODEM, THEN THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM!!!
> AND NOTHING WILL WORK PERIOD!!!.
> 
> As to editing modem scripts by hand, that is absolutely insane.  If people
> accept the defaults to faxaddmodem, they will get a system that works.  If
> the start playing with the files themselves, god knows what they are going
> to change in a "desperate" attempt to get the modem working.
> 
> Granted, for many NO-NAME fax modems out there, the config files may have to 
> be edited, but that is not what HylaFAX was designed for.  It is a ROBUST
> fax package, that works with GOOD QUALITY fax modems.   I have NEVER had to
> manually edit a modem config file unless I made a typo in faxaddmodem that
> I didn't catch.  If you have had to manually edit a modem config file for 
> anything other than the tagline or whatever, then I wonder why?
> 
> If you are looking for a simple fax package, people should be using some other
> package.
> 
> Remember, a software package is only as good as the support that it gets,
> and these (HylaFAX )non-standard locations and naming conventions would 
> ( in my opinion ) reduce the ability of the mailing list to support the 
> package.
> 
> Also, were you aware that we are currently working on a new patch level 
> for HylaFAX?
> 
> -- 
> 	Steve Williams, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
> 	Genie Computer Systems Inc.
> 	steve@genie96.com
> 
> "A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is 
>  no longer indespensable."
> - Admiral Richard E. Byrd ( 1888-1957 )
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > I hope with this rpm release, hylafax is easier than before to setup.
> > 
> > The old annoyances of afm directories, entries in /etc/aliases, 
> > /etc/inetd.conf, /etc/inittab, /etc/services, creating of the user
> > fax are all taken care of.
> > 
> > To send and receive faxes all one needs to do is
> > 
> > 	(1) rpm -i hylafax-4.0-4.i386.rpm
> > 	(2) reboot
> > 	(3) Edit /var/spool/hyla/config and
> > 		/var/spool/hyla/config.modem 
> > 	    until one can send and receive faxes
> > 	(4) Further customization can be done by editing
> > 		/usr/lib/hyla/typerules
> > 		/usr/lib/hyla/faxcover.ps
> > 		/var/spool/hyla/bin/faxrcvd
> > 
> > 
> > Let me answer some of the issues raised:
> > 
> > (1) /usr vs /usr/local
> > 
> > 	Traditionally unix systems put all the programs that were
> > shipped with the machine /usr/bin. The programs that were installed
> > by the sys admin went into /usr/local. Undoubtedly, this a very useful
> > convention.
> > 
> > 	However, RPMs provide a new way of managing applications. /usr
> > directory is no longer monolithic. It is composed of files from
> > the RPM packages. The philosophy of Redhat has been to put the RPM
> > files in /usr. /usr/local should be used for the .tar.gz packages. 
> > Not all packagers follow Redhat convention. Redhat itself
> > follows the convention meticulously and I hope Redhat will include
> > the hylafax RPM in their next release.
> > 
> > 
> > (2) fax vs hyla
> > 
> > 	I am sorry that I had to deviate from the convention
> > and changed /var/spool/fax to /var/spool/hyla and /usr/lib/fax
> > to /usr/lib/hyla. There are two other packages that are bundled with
> > Redhat Linux: efax and mgetty+sendfax. mgetty+sendfax has two 
> > directories, /var/spool/fax/incoming and /var/spool/fax/outgoing.
> > I think it will be a major source of confusion to have 
> > 6 directories of hylafax and 2 directories of mgetty+sendfax
> > in the same /var/spool/fax. While removing all the other
> > fax packages is an option, most people don't bother to
> > remove them. To the extent possible, I think it is better to
> > not to intrude into other's namespace.
> > 
> > (3) xferstats and xferlog
> > 
> > After a suggestion by Nico Garcia I changed it to the more descriptive
> > xferfaxstats intstead of the confusing xferstat. Similarly I changed 
> > xferlog to xferfaxlog. 
> > 	
> > 
> > (4) default etc/config etc/config.modem
> > 
> > While one can use 'faxsetup' and 'faxaddmodem' to generate these
> > files, I found it easier to edit these files directly. Especially
> > 'faxaddmodem' can be a source of real frustration. It should be
> > remembered that config and config.modem most likely need some editing
> > to suit the particular modem at hand.
> > 
> > Ramana
> 
>