2008 pcspkr apparently not working

Robert M. Riches Jr.

Has anyone else found 2008.0's pcspkr module to not work?

I modprobed pcspkr, then booted with pcspkr in
modprobe.preload, and it doesn't seem to be working. Either
that or someone has made X default to visible flashing
rather than audible beeping. There is mention on a Fedora
list that the kernel is broken in handling pcspkr:



However, I don't see a bug report at qa.mandriva.com about
this problem.

Any suggestions to troubleshoot it before I file a bug
report?

Thanks.

--
Robert Riches

(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

Robert M. Riches Jr.

On 2007-12-31, David W. Hodgins <> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:36:43 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:
>
>> Hmmm... Any idea what that setting in kcontrol does
>> internally to the system? I don't use KDE or Gnome.
>
> It updates ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals, setting UseSystemBell=true, so kde
> applications will use the pcspkr, instead of the visual notification.
>
> Have you checked aumix, to ensure the speaker is on, and the volume is set?
>
> Which window manager (if any), are you using?

I'm using twm as my window manager.

Mention of aumix possibly being connected with the PC
speaker is interesting. I wonder since when is there
supposed to be any connection. On my 2007.0 system,
pressing Control-G at an xterm's csh prompt produces an
audible beep from the PC speaker independent of "aumix -p 0"
and "aumix -q" returning "speaker 0, 0".

On my 2008.0 system, pressing Control-G at an xterm's csh
prompt produces a visual flash on the xterm, kernel module
pcspkr is loaded at boot (by /etc/modprobe.preload), and
"aumix -q" returns the following:

vol 81, 81, P
pcm 100, 100
speaker 100, 100
line 100, 100, R
mic 100, 100, P
cd 100, 100, P
igain 40, 40
line1 100, 100, P
dig1 0, 0
phin 100, 100, P
phout 100, 100, P
video 100, 100, P

Thanks for the info and suggestions. It's looking more like
it's almost time to file a bug report.

--
Robert Riches

(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

Robert M. Riches Jr.

On 2007-12-31, Allodoxaphobia <> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:04:14 -0500, David W. Hodgins wrote:
>> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:36:43 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:
>>
>>> Hmmm... Any idea what that setting in kcontrol does
>>> internally to the system? I don't use KDE or Gnome.
>>
>> It updates ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals, setting UseSystemBell=true, so kde
>> applications will use the pcspkr, instead of the visual notification.
>>
>> Have you checked aumix, to ensure the speaker is on, and the volume is set?
>>
>> Which window manager (if any), are you using?
>
> Here I find _no_ PC Spkr listed in alsamixer, aumix, nor kmix.
> Running KDE here.
> As I stated in another followup here, I _can_ get "System Bell" to work.
> I cannot get any other program (e.g., `beep`) to toot the speaker.

What 'beep' program are you meaning? What does it actually
call?

--
Robert Riches

(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

Allodoxaphobia

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:55:00 -0500, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:26:50 -0500, Allodoxaphobia <> wrote:
>
>> Here I find _no_ PC Spkr listed in alsamixer, aumix, nor kmix.
>
> In aumix, it's just called speaker.
> $ aumix -q
> speaker 100, 100

$ aumix -q
vol 58, 58, P
pcm 29, 29
line 77, 77, P
mic 0, 0, R
cd 77, 77, P
pcm2 48, 48
igain 80, 80
line1 77, 77, P
dig1 0, 0
phin 77, 77, P
phout 77, 77, P
video 100, 100, P
$

HUH??

>> As I stated in another followup here, I _can_ get "System Bell" to work.
>> I cannot get any other program (e.g., `beep`) to toot the speaker.
>
> Just installed the beep package from contrib. Running beep, as root,
> does nothing here. Running it as a regular user gets
> [dave@hodgins ~]$ beep
> ioctl: Operation not permitted
> ioctl: Operation not permitted
> but, it does beep. This is running it in a kde konsole.
>
> Logging into a tty using alt+ctrl+f2, as root, beep does nothing. As
> a regular user, it works.

No joy here that-a-way, either. (Maybe your root failure is the sound
settings for "speaker" _for_ root.)

/var/log/messages reveals nothing for all these attempts wiyh `beep`.

> Looks like a problem with the beep program, not the pc speaker module.
> See the man page for beep, which suggests running it with setuid root.

I _do_ have it setuid root.
I _did_ have the "ioctl: Operation not permitted" problem until I did that.

And, like I said upthread, the identical configuration on MDK 10.2 works
here.

Too weird...

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: <http://jonz.net/ng.htm>

David W. Hodgins

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:39:00 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:

> On my 2008.0 system, pressing Control-G at an xterm's csh
> prompt produces a visual flash on the xterm, kernel module

Try running "xterm +vb", or editing ~/.screenrc to turn the visual bell off.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
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use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

Allodoxaphobia

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:40:36 GMT, Robert M. Riches Jr. wrote:
> On 2007-12-31, Allodoxaphobia <> wrote:
>> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:04:14 -0500, David W. Hodgins wrote:
>>> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:36:43 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hmmm... Any idea what that setting in kcontrol does
>>>> internally to the system? I don't use KDE or Gnome.
>>>
>>> It updates ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals, setting UseSystemBell=true, so kde
>>> applications will use the pcspkr, instead of the visual notification.
>>>
>>> Have you checked aumix, to ensure the speaker is on, and the volume is set?
>>>
>>> Which window manager (if any), are you using?
>>
>> Here I find _no_ PC Spkr listed in alsamixer, aumix, nor kmix.
>> Running KDE here.
>> As I stated in another followup here, I _can_ get "System Bell" to work.
>> I cannot get any other program (e.g., `beep`) to toot the speaker.
>
> What 'beep' program are you meaning? What does it actually call?

beep-1.2.2-7mdv2007.1

Useful in a bash script to get the attention of the otherwise
distracted....

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: <http://jonz.net/ng.htm>

David W. Hodgins

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:26:50 -0500, Allodoxaphobia <> wrote:

> Here I find _no_ PC Spkr listed in alsamixer, aumix, nor kmix.

In aumix, it's just called speaker.
$ aumix -q
speaker 100, 100

> Running KDE here.

Strange that kmix would not show the PC Speaker, on the output tab.

> As I stated in another followup here, I _can_ get "System Bell" to work.
> I cannot get any other program (e.g., `beep`) to toot the speaker.

Just installed the beep package from contrib. Running beep, as root,
does nothing here. Running it as a regular user gets
[dave@hodgins ~]$ beep
ioctl: Operation not permitted
ioctl: Operation not permitted
but, it does beep. This is running it in a kde konsole.

Logging into a tty using alt+ctrl+f2, as root, beep does nothing. As
a regular user, it works.

Looks like a problem with the beep program, not the pc speaker module. See
the man page for beep, which suggests running it with setuid root.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

David W. Hodgins

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:39:00 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:

> On my 2008.0 system, pressing Control-G at an xterm's csh
> prompt produces a visual flash on the xterm, kernel module

Just tested it. xterm does not use ~/.screenrc. Add the folllowing to
~/.Xdefaults
xterm*visualBell: false

Then logout/in.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

Allodoxaphobia

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:55:00 -0500, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:26:50 -0500, Allodoxaphobia <> wrote:
>
>> Here I find _no_ PC Spkr listed in alsamixer, aumix, nor kmix.
>
> In aumix, it's just called speaker.
> $ aumix -q
> speaker 100, 100

$ aumix -q
vol 58, 58, P
pcm 29, 29
line 77, 77, P
mic 0, 0, R
cd 77, 77, P
pcm2 48, 48
igain 80, 80
line1 77, 77, P
dig1 0, 0
phin 77, 77, P
phout 77, 77, P
video 100, 100, P
$

HUH??

>> As I stated in another followup here, I _can_ get "System Bell" to work.
>> I cannot get any other program (e.g., `beep`) to toot the speaker.
>
> Just installed the beep package from contrib. Running beep, as root,
> does nothing here. Running it as a regular user gets
> [dave@hodgins ~]$ beep
> ioctl: Operation not permitted
> ioctl: Operation not permitted
> but, it does beep. This is running it in a kde konsole.
>
> Logging into a tty using alt+ctrl+f2, as root, beep does nothing. As
> a regular user, it works.

No joy here that-a-way, either. (Maybe your root failure is the sound
settings for "speaker" _for_ root.)

/var/log/messages reveals nothing for all these attempts wiyh `beep`.

> Looks like a problem with the beep program, not the pc speaker module.
> See the man page for beep, which suggests running it with setuid root.

I _do_ have it setuid root.
I _did_ have the "ioctl: Operation not permitted" problem until I did that.

And, like I said upthread, the identical configuration on MDK 10.2 works
here.

Too weird...

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: <http://jonz.net/ng.htm>

Robert M. Riches Jr.

On 2007-12-30, David W. Hodgins <> wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:31:41 -0500, Robert M. Riches Jr. <> wrote:
>
>> Has anyone else found 2008.0's pcspkr module to not work?
>> I modprobed pcspkr, then booted with pcspkr in
>
> I have it working now. Loaded the module, used kcontrol to set the system bell
> to use the pc speaker, turned on the speaker in kmix, and set the volume to max.
> Had to restart kde, to get it to work, but it is working now.

Hmmm... Any idea what that setting in kcontrol does
internally to the system? I don't use KDE or Gnome.

--
Robert Riches

(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)