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

[Dotan Cohen]

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 08:29, Yaniv Aknin <yaniv at aknin.name> wrote:
> 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
>

In a server room beep can be used to find the machine you're looking
for! I reference this classic:
http://www.bash.org/?5273


-- 
Dotan Cohen

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