I installed Ubuntu 7.10 recently (yesterday) and, despite being a total linux and Ubuntu novice I have managed to get almost everything up and running how I'd like it.

However, I can't figure out how to deal with this obnoxious system beep that occurs at the login screen as soon as the screen loads. I've removed the infernal sound from the system after logging in, simply disabling it through the GUI along with all other OS sounds. However, that hasn't stopped the beep at the login screen.

This is a laptop, so my primary consideration here is that sometimes I'm in class or a library or something and I'd rather not be the jerk with the system beep going off every time I need to perform so basic a task as logging in. If I have to disable the system beep from ever happening under any circumstance, that's just fine. There's never been a single time when that unholy sound blared through my speakers and I was glad of it.

I read a command line entry for a different system beep issue that might work, but I don't exactly know what I'm doing and the last thing I need is to disable my whole sound card or something because I'm way too lazy to fix that, let alone that I wouldn't know how. Since I've always had great experiences on this forum I'll see what kind of specific responses I can get before I do anything potentially irreversible.

You may need to turn off the system bell. Open your .inputrc (and maybe /etc/inputrc) and put in this: set bell-style none.

I think I got it. I'm not sure, but it may have been caused by Ubuntu trying to mount my external hard drive at the login screen and failing to do so, resulting in the beep. It's gone, anyway.

Thanks, though.