Arch Linux

gojamiegirl

Member

From: Pacific Beach, CA

Registered: 2005-07-05

Posts: 19

Website

Please help me disable the system bell!

I can't seem to disable the system bell that is driving me bat$#!+ insane when I shutdown/reboot my laptop, please help!!!

Here's what I've tried so far...

# In /etc/rc.conf - doesn't work

MODULES=(!snd_pcsp !pcspkr)      

# In ~/.xinitrc and /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc - doesn't work

setterm -blength 0
xset -b off
xset b 0 0 0

# In /etc/inputrc - doesn't work

set bell-style none

# This turned the beep volume down from earsplitting to nearly tolerable but it's definitely not zero
Turned alsamixer "beep" to volume 0

Any other ideas?  There must be a way that doesn't involve custom kernels or egads! switching to Ubuntu!  If this is compiled into the kernel, how can I influence Arch kernel people to make the system bell optional?

I have an HP Pavillion DV7 laptop and I would unplug the speaker if I knew how to get to it.  Please don't make me go to Ubuntu because of a beep (that wakes my household!) after 6 years!

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,600

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Add this works for me:

MODULES=(!snd_pcsp !pcspkr)

Sorry I can't help.

Last edited by graysky (2010-12-22 00:01:26)

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sonoran

Member

From: sonoran desert

Registered: 2009-01-12

Posts: 192

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

What Desktop Environment/Window Manager are you using, if any?

SiD

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2006-09-21

Posts: 729

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

are the modules "snd_pcsp" and "pcspkr" listed in lsmod output?

Kosmonavt

Member

Registered: 2010-02-15

Posts: 100

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Try the following: put "blacklist pcspkr" and "blacklist snd_pcsp" lines to /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf

gojamiegirl

Member

From: Pacific Beach, CA

Registered: 2005-07-05

Posts: 19

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Hello, thanks!

I'm using Gnome/Metacity

Modules are not loaded
[jamie@simula ~]$ lsmod | grep pcs
[jamie@simula ~]$

I'll try your suggestion now Kosmonavt.

gojamiegirl

Member

From: Pacific Beach, CA

Registered: 2005-07-05

Posts: 19

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

That didn't work either Kosmonavt

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,899

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Wondering if its not a bios thing rather than Arch problem?

Quick and dirty hack it too get an old pair of headphones and cut lead off, plug that in silence!

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Mr Green

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Do you have a "Beep" slider in alsamixer? Probably yes, in which case just mute that.

cirkit

Member

From: San Francisco

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 80

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Since you are using Gnome, are you sure the bell you hear is not from gnome-terminal? It seems all the possible ways to disable the bell you are hearing have been exhausted. Since nothing else worked for you, gnome-terminal's bell would be the next thing to check.

Radioactiveman

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2010-05-13

Posts: 388

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Maybe you can disable it with gconf?

/apps/metacity/general/audible_bell

gojamiegirl

Member

From: Pacific Beach, CA

Registered: 2005-07-05

Posts: 19

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

@Gusar - I do have a beep volume control in alsamixer, that didn't work

@cirkit   -  I've successfully disabled the bell in gnome-terminal and vim already.  I doubt that it's the BIOS, but it's probably the only thing left to try.  The problematic beep occurs only when gnome/X is shutting down and occurs whether gnome-terminal is open or not.  It seems to happen between nautilus shutting down and xorg shutting down because all the icons etc or gone but the wallpaper image is still there, then it beeps and goes to black screen and services start shutting down.

@Mr Green - I like the way your mind works!  I'll use your headphone cord hack until I find a real answer thanks!

Thank you all for you ideas!

defears

Member

Registered: 2010-07-26

Posts: 218

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Maybe it's gnome's system sound theme. The first thing I do when installing any gnome system is turn off all sound themes in volume control.

rockin turtle

Member

From: Montana, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 227

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

New motherboards these days often omit the annoying 'beep' speaker output pins (mine is this way). The good folks at gnome have probably noticed this and thought to themselves "The motherboard manufacturers are conspiring against us to thwart our attempts to pointlessly annoy people. We cannot let this continue.  We will henceforth emulate the annoying 'beep' using the sound system."

Because of this, all attempts to shut down the pc speaker fail because gnome is not using the pc speaker.  I'm not sure if this is actually the case, I only suspect this.

There might be a 'beep.wav' file somewhere on your system that gnome plays whenever they wish to annoy you.  If you were to replace this file with a 'silence.wav' (do $ mv silence.wav beep.wav) then gnome may play this silent wave file instead.

Unfortunately, I don't know if this is actually the case, or where such a file would be located.

Good luck.

cirkit

Member

From: San Francisco

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 80

Website

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

Do you have ifplugd installed and running? I know ifplugd makes a beep sound when you restart/halt. If so, disable this from your DAEMONS array in rc.conf with

 !ifplugd

and see if the beep comes back. However, I am not 100% sure if you can disable the beep with ifplugd.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

@Gusar - I do have a beep volume control in alsamixer, that didn't work

Did you actually mute it, or just set it to zero? I still have the beep when it's set to zero. You need to mute it, pressing 'm' in alsamixer.

Cyrusm

Member

From: Bozeman, MT

Registered: 2007-11-15

Posts: 1,053

Re: Please help me disable the system bell!

If all else fails, you could take care of the problem at the source with a soldering iron

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