Beep/Bell in computer with no speaker
 

This is not a question but an answer. Thought I would share what I learned incase someone else runs into this issue:

Some programs we use require the BELL (BEL) function. This is the ancient teletype bell that rings when a ^G is sent to a terminal emulator.

Under Linux, you can tell if yours works by pressing Control-G in an Xterm. If you hear a beep- it works. Normally this used to be done through the "PC SPEAKER" which is a separate speaker in the computer. Under KDE/Gnome, there are functions to reroute this to the Linux sound system to simulate the bell.

But in our environment, we don't use KDE/Gnome, we use thin clients talking to a remote icewm. The solution on most of the machines was easy- just load the "pcspkr" kernel module and wham, you will hear beeps again.

But on the new Shuttle machines, they have no speaker or even connection for one. So I had a problem. Fortunately, I was not the only one with such a problem- and the solution was found on this site:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Virtual_PC_Speaker

Which directed me to this site:

http://www.carcosa.net/jason/software/beep/

There is a kernel driver called "beep" that compiled perfectly under Mandriva 2007.0. It creates a /dev/beep device that a (supplied) daemon can use to play sounds (with aplay) when a BEL occurs. I
already sent the author Email thanking him.

There is also a visual beep that inverts the screen.

True, of course, that only inverts that one window, though... and doesn't do much good when not looking at the screen and for non xterm programs that ring the bell :)