PC speaker
Ever since the first IBM PC most PCs have a built-in PC speaker (or beeper) which may produce beeps. This speaker is not capable of high quality playback and merely serves as a simple means of auditory feedback in the form of beeps. Some software, e.g. web browsers, editors and terminals, may produce beeps which may or may not be desired by the user. Hence this article serves as a guide on how to configure or even disable those beeps.
For situations where no sound card or speakers are available and a simple audio notification is desired, see #Beep.
Mechanism
The PC speaker is typically a physical unit connected on the front connections header of the motherboard. Some motherboard manufacturers do not ship their motherboards with a PC speaker at all, whereas others may have the PC speaker soldered directly onto the surface. Laptops typically have no physical PC speaker but have the beeper routed to the laptop's internal speakers. In some cases, the beeper is heard on the regular output (i.e. speakers, headphones) of the soundcard, which tends to be unexpectedly loud.
Upon boot the BIOS will traditionally generate a beep during POST. More recent motherboard models omit the POST beep in favor of rapidly booting into the OS. The BIOS typically allows for toggling the POST beeps but it cannot configure the PC speaker to be turned off completely.
Once the system has booted into Linux and the pcspkr kernel module is loaded, the PC speaker can be used by the environment, be invoked manually by the user, and be configured to some extent. Because the PC speaker is controlled directly by the CPU, along with the fact that they are built for beeping only, PC speakers cannot be used for playing back audio.
Disabling the PC speaker
Turning off a particular instance of a sound, while leaving the others operational, is possible if and only if one can identify which portion of the environment generates the particular sound. This allows customizing the selection of sounds. Please feel free to add any configurations and settings to this wiki page that may be useful for other users.
Globally
By removing the PC speaker the system will not be able to produce beeps. This can be achieved by physically removing the unit from the motherboard (if possible). Some manufacturers may provide a jumper header to switch it off.
In Linux
The PC speaker can be disabled by unloading the pcspkr kernel module:
# rmmod pcspkr
Blacklisting the pcspkr module will prevent udev from loading it at boot. Create the file:
/etc/modprobe.d/nobeep.conf
blacklist pcspkr
Blacklisting it on the kernel command line is yet another way. Simply add modprobe.blacklist=pcspkr to your bootloader's kernel line.
Console
You can add this command in /etc/profile or a dedicated file like /etc/profile.d/disable-beep.sh:
setterm -blength 0
Another way is to uncomment or add this line in /etc/inputrc or ~/.inputrc:
set bell-style none
Less pager
To disable PC speaker in less pager, you can launch it with less -q to mute PC speaker for end of line events or less -Q to mute it altogether. For man pages, launch man -P "less -Q" or set the $MANPAGER or $PAGER environment variables.
Alternatively, you can add these lines to your ~/.bashrc:
alias less='less -Q' alias man='man -P "less -Q"'
Xorg
$ xset -b
You can add this command to a startup file such as /etc/xprofile to make it permanent. See xprofile for more information.
ALSA
For most sound cards the PC speaker is listed as an ALSA channel, named either PC Speaker, PC Beep, or Beep. To mute the speaker, either use alsamixer or amixer , for example:
$ amixer set 'PC Speaker' 0% mute
To unmute the channel, see Advanced Linux Sound Architecture#Unmuting the channels.
GNOME
Using GSettings:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences audible-bell false
KDE Plasma
Bell notification settings can be modified in "System Settings"->"Accessibility Options"->"Bell".
Cinnamon
Cinnamon seems to play a "water drop" sound. To disable it, set in gsettings(1):
$ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences audible-bell false
GTK
Append this line to ~/.gtkrc-2.0:
gtk-error-bell = 0
Add the same line to the [Settings] section of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-3.0/settings.ini:
[Settings] gtk-error-bell = 0
This is documented in the Gnome Developer Handbook.
PulseAudio
Play a sound instead of a PC speaker beep using PulseAudio.
Beep
A user can create a short audible tone when logged in to a virtual console. See Wikipedia:bell character#usage for the details.
Beep is an advanced PC speaker beeping program. It is useful for situations where no sound card and/or speakers are available, and simple audio notification is desired.
Installation
You may also need to unmute the PC speaker in ALSA.
Run as non-root user
beep uses /dev/input/by-path/platform-pcspkr-event-spkr to control the PC speaker. To access it as a non-root user, one has to set the proper permissions. Create /etc/udev/rules.d/70-pcspkr-beep.rules and add the following rule:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="input", ATTRS{name}=="PC Speaker", ENV{DEVNAME}!="", TAG+="uaccess"
That will allow any user, who is logged into the currently active virtual console session, to use the PC speaker.
Alternatively, a new user group may be created (e.g. beep) with the corresponding rule to set the right permissions on the device file:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="input", ATTRS{name}=="PC Speaker", ENV{DEVNAME}!="", GROUP="beep", MODE="0620"
With that solution any user in the beep group will be able to control the speaker.
To force reloading rules and device file to apply new user permission without a reboot, execute:
$ udevadm control --reload && rmmod pcspkr && modprobe pcspkr
Tips and Tricks
While many people are happy with the traditional beep sound, some may like to change its properties a bit. The following example plays slighly higher and shorter sound and repeats it two times.
# beep -f 5000 -l 50 -r 2
See also
- xset(1), setterm(1), bash(1)
- https://github.com/NaWer/beep and https://github.com/ShaneMcC/beeps - repositories collecting bash scripts playing various music using beep