Defaults and behaviour of PC Speaker in future Ubuntu *Server* releases

[Yaniv Aknin]

Hi,

Today I ran into the subject of causing my home server to beep using
/usr/bin/beep from package beep and using kernel module pcspkr. It took a
bit of work to get things going and I had to read a bit for it, and here's
the summary of what I think is the state of things:
(1) Sometime around Karmic, as per bugs #77010 and #366399, snd_pcsp pcspkr
were blacklisted.
(2) Due to unknown reasons, removing the blacklist is insufficient to return
PC speaker functionality, as can be seen at #398161 and especially #486154.
An ugly workaround exists and works (rmmod & modprobe pcspkr in rc.local).
(3) Some people want the PC speaker to return, as you can see at #512415.
(4) There's (probably just) negative karma against the speaker, as can
easily be seen here:
https://tango.0pointer.de/pipermail/pulseaudio-discuss/2010-January/006411.html

Which leads me to argue:
(1) While I agree PC Speaker is a relic of times long gone on the Desktop,
on the Server (especially home/SMB server) it's still relevant, especially
for things you really want to know about (mdadm failures, for instance), and
don't want to miss because some bonehead in the next room turned off the
speakers because the server was beeping and the email didn't reach you
because of a spam filter.
(2) Regardless of whether the PC speaker is good or bad, it shan't be
*difficult*. If a Desktop user wants the PC Speaker to work, it should be as
simple as removing a line in the blacklist, at worst (could be even easier).

Since this is not about the technical act of fixing the bug but about the
policy act of deciding what to do about it at all, I'm taking this here.

Cheers,
 - Yaniv
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/attachments/20100912/ef574474/attachment.html>