hi all,

i have a bit of an annoying problem. I can't seem to shut the system bell up on my inspiron8500. i have modified /etc/inputrc to read:

set bell-style none

but it seems to have no affect. I double checked my ~ directory and I don't have another .inputrc there, so there is nothing overriding it. AFAIK this is the only place to set this in slackware?

anyone know what else I should check?

I have also tried setting it to 'visible' but it still just beeps. its getting very annoying now so thought I should address it.

thanks!

Are you sure you've got the line right in /etc/inputrc? No spelling mistakes or spacing errors? Is there a space at the beginning of the line?

Two ideas:

1) Check to make sure you don't have a #

2) Depending on your kernel configuration, you may just want to blacklist the PC speaker module.

Either way, this will show you how to do it.

You're not really saying where and when this happens,
what environment it happens in....

It will work in bash in the console, and it will work
in bash in an xterm ... but it's tied to readline, so
if you invoke bash with -noediting, or have a +o emacs
or +o vi somewhere in ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile you
may be using the bell after all ... that's all just
theory - I never had the issue, but that's my understanding
of the bash & readline integration.



Cheers,
Tink

The pcspkr module is already in the modprobe.d/blacklist. You have to edit rc.modules.

and /etc/modprobe.d/isapnp

If this happens inside your X windows environment, open a terminal and type

xset -b

if that fixes it, then add that line to your .xinitrc and you'll be golden.

many thanks to all the replies.

I'm never sure, so here is the first few lines of my inputrc:
I'm not sure what you mean by a '#'? Do you mean the bell will always be on as root?

I'll have to double check my .config, but:

modprobe -l | grep pcspkr

returns nothing. but also:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist | grep pcspkr

also returned nothing, so I added 'blacklist pcspkr' for s&g's anyway

sorry, I mostly notice it at the console (not in X, xfce-terminal)

at any rate, I think this may be the problem?

I'll change this and see.. But if anyone knows this is not the problem then could let me know so I'm not chasing my tail...

just I'll look through my .bash_profile for the emacs stuff

Well, thanks for the many helpful replies. Each provided something that I didn't know before.

It seems the problem was the PCSPKR=y from my .config (an option I no doubt selected early in my 'learning how to compile a kernel' days which has been carried on with the .config)

My new trouble is that the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file seems to be relevant only for hotplug?

adding it there didn't seem to help (I have 2.6 +x udev, -x hotplug)

so I just added this line to rc.local:
which I kind of like anyway because its easy to track what I've got going on.

anyone see a problem with using that to rid me of the 'bell'?

If it's being loaded as a module by /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, you could just comment that line out. Or do rmmod as you have done.

i don't actually use rc.modules, because I choose kernel module autoloading.

I'm not sure how to block these modules other than with rmmod, so as long as it works and doesn't violate any 'rules' i'll just leave it like that.

many thanks to all who've contributed.

I hate the 'pcspkr' module ... I typically don't compile it at all, not as module or built-in ... I mean, who wants annoying beeps coming from they computer every time there is some small error.

is it good for anything else? if not then I'll follow suit.

i think a few games were made, where voice output was implemented with a pc speaker...

when were those made ? in ancient times, when people didn't have speakers ?

I also think some modems use it ... for your personal pleasure ... modem ring tones are such beautiful music ...