IThis is for a 64 bit home built desktop, running only Linux. I doubt I will make any dialup data connections with it (but never say never) as I get high speed Internet with a cabel modem now. But am for sure interrested in sending and receiving FAXes, good chance as a dialer for voice calls, and maybe use as a telephone answering machine/voice mailbox. Right now I have no dialup modem as all, so, compleaely new project. Really would prefer something internal. With the main purpose in mind, and the fact I only have Linux ( Mint and Puppy ) what one will work out best.
Also any suggestions on software to use? - would like to not just send FAXes from a scanned page, but also from office document files ( .doc .docx .rtf ex. ) and plain text files.

Just about all late model internal FAX MODEMS are classified as soft MODEMs which require a driver and unfortunately are no longer supported. USB MODEMs use a virtual serial port like /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0 and will work without any special drivers.

efax is a simple FAX program which is command line but does have a GUI frontend. hylafax is a fax server, it has several clients for both windows and linux but is designed for the enterprise and maybe overkill for what you want/need.

vgetty is the main software used for voice answering machine but have not really played with it and most guides are fairly old.

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I get the feeling I used to use a usb or serial hardware modem. Maybe a US robotics? Sat in garage and finally took it all to goodwill. Might poke through their stuff.

There was some web page a guy had that had almost all the important data about modems such as winfax or hardware and the chipset and init strings. See if that is still online. modem something site.

Are you thinking about this site?

http://www.linmodems.org/

I still have both a 56K external serial and a USB MODEM although I really have no need but keep them around just in case. I have to scan/FAX something about once a year and just as easy to go to a FedEx office.

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O.K. - it's not SUPER critical to be internal, just prefered.
I don't FAX a lot, but it seems when I do, it is a hassle to have to go out for it - because it ends up back and fourth several times over the course of days to weeks. So, no it's not much in a years time, but high volume in both directions once it does start. And most replies I end up typing with LibreOffice Write, print it just to scan and send - that's why sending directly from a document file would be so nice.

USB MODEMs are fairly small i.e ~ 3 in x 3/4 in x 1/2 in. should work without needing to do anything special.

As I posted earlier the documentation is fairly old and I don't know if setting up a virtual fax printer still works. Look at the man pages under printing via cups for a howto guide.

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...fax-gtk.1.html
https://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201301/page09.html

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Your offerings for modems (especially internal ones), are going to be slim, period. They're just not used any longer for much of anything, and faxing is also rare. Emailing a PDF is faster and offers better quality.

That said, here's a cheap USB voice/fax/modem: https://www.amazon.com/Robotics-USR5.../dp/B0013FDLM0

..that works on Linux. Cannot attest to ANYTHING past what it says on the data sheet, since I've not touched such things in years. As mentioned, vgetty/mgetty are your 'gateways' to fax and voice services:
http://mgetty.greenie.net/
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/mgetty
https://community.linuxmint.com/soft...em-vgetty-perl
https://linux.die.net/man/8/vgetty
Faxing:
https://faxauthority.com/linux-fax/
And, how to set up LibreOffice: https://help.libreoffice.org/6.0/en-...D#bm_id3156426

Although, if you're fairly sure you won't make a dial-up connection for data (not even sure who still supports and offers that), why don't you just get an HP All-in-one device? Faxing from a print device AND from scanned document will then be available through the well-supported HPLIP software, along with scanning and printing. Honestly, though, there are a myriad of free-for-use fax services where you can send and receive electronically, without ANY hardware.

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http://www.modemsite.com/56k/index.asp too for some info.

I agree that all that stuff is way old. Might be much easier to use a web based fax service. Not sure if any are free, might be one or two?

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O.K., I'll start taking a look at some external ones since it does sound like that would be easier.
And to answer some of the questions...
I just never really did like multi-function devices (and have been around computers in general since the early 1980s). I have had a few through the years, in every case I can remember, I ended up getting separate devices anyway because of functions no longer working on multi-function device. (in fact right now I have a combo printer/scanner that is only any good as a scanner).
And perhaps I am a little paranoid - but don't like the idea of too much running through other peoples systems either. Ever E-mail, I have a few anonymous accounts for spam collecting, ang anything basically public, but for personal messages - like from friends, family, exc. that all is handled with my own mail server, and there are 1 or 2 exceptions, but most of them have an account on my server, so the message never leaves my system - so unless you want to check what went through ISPs...