It is a fundamental part of my belief structure that computers should be silent, unless told otherwise. A default install of the operating system should not make any sounds, unless there is a really good reason to. Thus, I object to the following:
- GDM beeping when it is ready to let me log in
- login sounds
- sound effects whenever I do anything, such as open or close windows
- sound effects whenever the computer wants to tell me something that isn't particularly important, such as new e-mail, IRC or IM messages to me, the networking going up or down, or a hard disk going missing
- a beep when I reboot or shutdown the computer
I'm sure there are situations when it would be OK for my computer to make noise to alert me. For example, supposed I'm asleep, and a zombie has penetrated my defensive perimeters and is about to chop off the top of my skull so it can devour my brain. In that case, I would be OK with my computer beeping. Once.
Some remedies:
- With gdm3, edit
/etc/gdm3/greeter.gconf-defaultsto set/desktop/gnome/sound/event_soundstofalse - Configure GNOME's sound theme to be "No sounds". (It should not be necessary to set "alert sounds" to muted, but it won't hurt either.)
- Run
amixer -q sset Beep offto shut upwalland other such tools. (I made an init.d script to make that happen automatically, and to make sure I don't forget it when I install new machines for myself.)
Now, it's possible that other people might like or need their computer to make sounds. I imagine, for example, that the GDM login-ready beep is to help people with vision problems. I'm all for that. However, I wish it be easier to shut things up in one simple place for those of us who don't need it.
Edit: Thanks to NP237, noshadow, lindi-, flightplan, and others on
#debian-devel with help on shutting up wall.
Depending on the source of the beep, it may help to blacklist the pcspkr and snd-pcsp kernel modules. Create a file
/etc/modprobe.d/beepless.confwhich contains the following:However, on some systems the beep comes from the sound card instead, in which case you need the amixer command you mentioned.
Josh, you're entirely right. In fact, that's what I tried first, this morning, after that didn't work, I got frustrated enough to try to figure out what would work.
Blacklisting those two modules should definitely help, particularly on desktop PCs. (And easier to do than opening the case to rip out the speaker, which I've done before.)
That's the first thing to do when configuring a computer. The second and almost as important is turning off all stupid UI animations.
Actually animations is the biggest gripe I have with my N900 phone now (and in KDE there's one - thankfully only one - place, Konsole's background color dialog or something like that, where you cannot turn off the animations). I just cannot understand. My phone/computer already has the information I want to see, but for some inexclicable reason showing it has to be delayed so I can watch some animation. Not unlike advertisements in television, except here I cannot understand their raison d'être.