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

[Daniel Chen]

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Yaniv Aknin <yaniv at aknin.name> wrote:
> (2) Due to unknown reasons, removing the blacklist is insufficient to return
> PC speaker functionality, as can be seen at #398161 and especially #486154.

pcspkr doesn't drive all hardware, and the emergence of HDA (and
consequently the corresponding beep driver) has further complicated
that picture.  Fortunately, one can reenable the beep driver at
runtime via a sysfs echo.  Of course for non-HDA hardware the picture
is still as craptastic.

> Which leads me to argue:
> (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.

There are, of course, uses of the speaker and/or beep.  Changing the
default behavior belongs in a script, and whether the speaker and/or
beep being disabled is a bug is actually up for discussion - perhaps
not in this thread - but assuming it isn't a bug, what needs to be
added to the server seed to [run a script to] reenable it?

Best,
-Dan