How to disable the pc speaker (beep!)

2008-09-04T13:14:47Z

JamMule: There are now two kernel modules, which allow the computer to shatter your eardrums.

Get rid of the annoying beeps in Linux

== Remove the pc speaker modules "pcspkr" and "snd_pcsp" ==

You might have only one of these modules in use, but they both enable beeps.

Open a terminal and issue this command as root:

{{cmdroot|modprobe -r pcspkr snd_pcsp}}

To prevent the "pcspkr" and "snd_pcsp" modules from loading again at startup add them to modprobe's blacklist in {{path|/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist}}. You can do this with the following command:

{{cmdroot|cat <<END >>/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist<br />
blacklist pcspkr<br />
blacklist snd_pcsp<br />
END}}

If this does not feel comfortable, you can also edit the aforementioned file with your favorite text editor and add the blacklist lines yourself.

=== Re-enabling the pc speaker ===
The speaker can be temporarily activated by loading either of the modules:

{{cmdroot|modprobe pcspkr}}

or

{{cmdroot|modprobe snd_pcsp}}

If you do not want to prevent the modules from loading during startup, delete the two blacklist lines mentioned in the previous section from {{path|/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist}}.

== Disable console beeps in /etc/inputrc ==

Another solution is to disable console beeps in /etc/inputrc (change with your favourite editor, should work on all distributions)
# do not bell on tab-completion
set bell-style none

== Disable the system beep in Gnome ==

In Ubuntu 7.10 and later, uncheck:
: System > Preferences > Sound > System Beep > Enable System Beep

Or if it's just the terminal tab auto-completion that's bothering you, uncheck:
: Terminal > Edit > Current Profile > Terminal bell

== Learning to love the beeps ==

Actually, these beeps are quite useful sometimes (especially with shell-scripts that want to get your attention with echo -e "\a" ).
The reason people tend to hate them are because they get overused.

1. Make bash tab-completion less beepy, by editing ''/etc/inputrc'' (or ''~/.inputrc''). Add:

# Show all if ambigious.
set show-all-if-ambiguous on

This makes tab-completion more useful, as well as less irritating: we now only get a beep on a true error (no possible completions); if multiple options are possible, all are printed, and it doesn't beep.

2. Make the beep quieter, shorter, and a nicer pitch. I tend to set 440 Hz, 50ms. Configure with kcontrol (in KDE), or just use xset in your startup files:
xset b 50 440 50

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How to disable the pc speaker (beep!)