How Do You Disable the System Bell for all Applications?

English Applications
1

Hey guys, brand new to the forums here, and I wanna say whats up before I posted my first thread!

Anyways, on to my question. I’ve searched all over Google and searched the forums and I have not been successful in finding out how to disable the System Bell (Beep) computer-wide.

It’s annoying hearing this extremely loud “BEEP” when I hit backspace one too many times, even when my sound is muted. People look at me like I’m crazy. Even if I try to backspace a non-existent character in my Google Chrome browser, I am struck with a crazy Error Beep.

Long story short, how do I disable the System-wide “System Bell” (“BEEP”) permanently? I’m on OpenSuse 11.3 using the KDE 4.4.4 Desktop.

Thanks for any responses! If you don’t have an answer, feel free to post something!

PS. Sorry if this thread has a more proper Forum.

2

If you open up the menu / Personnel Settings / General Tab / Look & Feel / Notifications and Select System Bell on the left is the option “Use system bell instead of system notifications” checked? If so, uncheck it and see what you get.

Thank You,

3

I looked where you suggested and my System Bell is actually unchecked, so I checked if Chrome was still giving me the Beep and it was. I turned on the System Bell, turned the volume to 0%, Tested it with a positive result, applied the setting and checked Chrome again; still yelled at me. Chrome doesn’t even appear in the System Notification’s Event Source list.

So it appears that your solution works for everything except for Applications not listed, or just Chrome lol. Anyone have any other ideas?

4

Anything in the chrome preference/settings screens? I don’t use it myself.

5

No I haven’t been able to find anything there either. Even when I “Use System Title Bar and Borders” it doesn’t properly display the System Title Bar, it doesn’t even show it actually. I also just found another System Beep. It happens when I’m in Eclipse IDE and hit Backspace one too many times.

6

Well you could just unplug the internal speaker :slight_smile:

This appears to be in only non-kde programs.

7

Lol I’ve seen that response to some other threads too. I’d rather not just cuz this problem is occurring on my work laptop. I wonder if there’s anything in the BIOS to turn it off…

8

Can’t you turn down or even mute the volume of the beeps in KMix? Or in YaST’s Volume module?

In KMix look if there is a channel called ‘Beep’ and if muting it has the desired effect. If it is not there, try the menu ‘Settings’ > ‘Channels’ in order to add it.

9

I wrote this script a while ago. I call it “tagueule”, which means “shut up” in french:

#! /bin/sh

xset -b 2>/dev/null && exit
case `uname -s | tr ":upper:]" ":lower:]"` in
        openbsd)        /sbin/wsconsctl keyboard.bell.period=0 ;;       
        netbsd)         /sbin/wsconsctl -w keyboard.bell.period=0 ;;
        freebsd)        /usr/sbin/kbdcontrol -b off ;;
        linux)          setterm -blength 0 ;;
esac

So when I sit on a new system the first thing I type in a terminal, even before ‘uname’ is just ‘tagueule’ lol!

Under Linux, you can add/uncomment “set bell-style none” in /etc/inputrc for bash and
write ‘xset -b’ in your profile or Xsession/xinitrc (for X) . However Gnome tends to ignore that. For Gnome, you should set /apps/metacity/general/audible_bell to false with gconf-editor or gconftool-2.

Hope it helps (I just hate the system bell … and bells in general).

10

That worked for me thanks!

11

On some systems it helps to blacklist ‘pcspkr’.

12

On 2010-10-22 10:36, Knurpht wrote:
>
> On some systems it helps to blacklist ‘pcspkr’.

That’s the “real” beep, and usually it is soft. The “OP” was getting the “pseudo” beep via sound card.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

13

I am suffering from this same problem with google chrome.
When hitting the backspace key one too many times in google chrome get this god awful loud beep.
Don’t get it in either firefox or konqueror or any other apps I can think of.

Have the mono computer speaker muted.
in Kmix select beep and have this muted.
These appear to have no effect and still get the awful beep.

Any suggestions?

14

On 2010-12-01 11:06, farcusnz wrote:

> Any suggestions?

That one is probably specific of g.chrome. Doesn’t it have a setup?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

15

no - no settings in chrome.
Found this which has done the trick in the short term

rmmod pcspkr
16

On 2010-12-01 12:36, farcusnz wrote:

> Found this which has done the trick in the short term
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> rmmod pcspkr
> --------------------

That was said in this thread already. Or blacklisting it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

17

can see this mention . . .

On some systems it helps to blacklist ‘pcspkr’.

and then this

That’s the “real” beep, and usually it is soft. The “OP” was getting the “pseudo” beep via sound card.

first suggestion seems to be different to what I have done and then the confusing follow up which seems to suggest pcspkr is not the culprit - which in my situation clearly is.
All solved now though. Will add the blacklist as a permanent fix I guess.

Why does Chrome exhibit this behaviour anyway?

18

Bumping because KMix no longer seems to contain the beep device.

http://i.imgur.com/c6pAS.png

http://i.imgur.com/RxHAS.png

19

That is because by default PulseAudio is now used. If you disable PulseAudio, KMix will be the same as in the last few pre-11.4 openSUSEs.

20

In your home folder, there is file called .inputrc
edit it, and there change the option to
set bell-style none

should get that beep muted permanently.