Beep Beep - pcspkr and snd_pcsp quiet please!

Having the flexibility to have the pc speaker / beep active in different contexts is useful, however it does require you to know, how to switch off beep, in each context.


tty terminal Ctrl+Alt+F1 - silence the beep:

Here (as root) I created a file named /etc/profile.d/beep-pcspkr-pcbeep-disable.sh and included a setterm command.

Permissions of 644 work okay for this file.

What you should now experience is a TTY console having no beep.

Switch to a tty console login using Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login, your shell completion should now be free of any audible feedback beep.


X terminal - xfce4 terminal - silence the beep:

Graphical desktops (X based) have their own preferences for audio feedback beep, and in my terminal xfce4-terminal, the preference is shown below:

MiscBell=FALSE

...which can be found in the file .config/Terminal/terminalrc

But my MiscBell=TRUE?

Change it to FALSE using an editor if you want to silence the beep.

But my user does not have a file .config/Terminal/terminalrc  - does not exist?

Xfce4-terminal has a preferences screen in Edit->Preferences, go into there and change 'initial title' from Terminal to Xfce4terminal and select 'Close'

What your action above did, was trigger the creation of .config/Terminal/terminalrc

Now you can make your edit.

Why would you want a beep anyway?

Some command line novices find the audible beep a useful feedback mechanism.

Being a novice, back before Red Hat became Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I remember using the feature myself.




But I still have a bootup and reboot Beep - absolute silence please?

Mute the 'PC Beep' column in alsamixer using the 'm' key.

• Startup alsamixer from a terminal (not required to be root)
• Navigate right until the PC beep column is highlighted
• Press 'm' to mute that column

Exit alsamixer using Esc (avoid pressing Q as this is the key for volume increase)

There is no need to explicitly save alsa settings, as simply exiting using Esc is enough to make your new settings persistent.

Note: PC Beep '00' is probably not going to be complete silence. Mute the thing.


Notes and Further Reading:

• Manpage of alsamixer  [ manpages.debian.net ]
• Screenshot of alsamixer [ screenshots.debian.net ]
• alsa-utils list of programs [ alsa-project.org ]
  
• Soundcard testing guide [ alsa-project.org ]
  

The alsa-utils package contains the program alsamixer. The package alsa-utils should already be installed on your system. If not use the following:

apt-get install alsa-utils

( apt-get above is for Debian and derivatives including Ubuntu)

yum install -y alsa-utils

( yum for Fedora / Red Hat / MeeGo and similar )

That alsa-utils package includes a utility named aplay, which can be used to check which sound devices in your system are known to alsa.

The above is a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop, which I am currently setting up with Debian Squeeze. This laptop will have an Xfce desktop, and I have yet to test HDMI audio output, as HDMI port is not something I use regularly.