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

[Akkana Peck]

Daniel Chen writes:
> Fortunately, one can reenable the beep driver at
> runtime via a sysfs echo.  

Could you elaborate on that? I'm not having much luck googling,
just a few people saying they couldn't find a command that worked.

The lack of beep is definitely specific to Ubuntu kernels.
If I build my own kernel.org kernel, beeps work fine; but Ubuntu
kernels, even with the pcspkr module loaded, mostly don't beep.

I say "mostly" because occasionally, if I fiddle long enough and
load/unload/reload the pcspkr module, I can get a machine beeping
until the next reboot. I've never found a method that works repeatably.

If I compile the external "Fancy beeper" module at
http://www.carcosa.net/jason/software/beep/
it works fine, even for normal PC speaker beeps.

> 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?

I'd love to see a reliable/scriptable way of enabling pcspkr,
as I'm sure would the other people commenting in the various bug
reports. Bug 486154, especially, is full of suggestions on elaborate
workarounds that work for some people but not for others.

	...Akkana