Turn off (mute) system beep

[WolfJay_83]

For anyone with a laptop who works in a library or other quiet area, system beeps every time you press the backspace key one too many times, or just using emacs, can be quite disturbing.

To shut them off:
open an xterm or terminal, and enter the two lines

xset b off
xset b 0 0 0

Hope this helps.

note: this does not work if run before X. To have it run as default, you can place it in your .xinitrc before the windowmanager. If you're using Gnome or KDE, it is probably easier to just turn off the "System Bell" or set it to "Visable Only" in your respective settings manager.

[zachtib]

Originally Posted by WolfJay_83 For anyone with a laptop who works in a library or other quiet area, system beeps every time you press the backspace key one too many times, or just using emacs, can be quite disturbing. To shut them off: open an xterm or terminal, and enter the two lines xset b off xset b 0 0 0 Hope this helps.

will this disable it permanently, or do i need to run this every time i boot up?

[Parkotron]

I've always just unplugged the internal speaker all together. I guess this solution is a little less drastic.

[WolfJay_83]

It appears to turn it off temporarily (I've been using it just when in the library). I suppose if you put it in a script to be run on bootup, you could make it perminent. I will have to put together instructions when I do that myself.

note: its kindof hard to disconnect the pc speaker in a laptop. Also, on a PC, if your video or ram gets messed up, you won't know whats going on on bootup without the post beep.

regards

[art]

You can disable system bell if in the Terminal you go to Edit->Current Profile->General and uncheck the Terminal Bell
Or in the Configuration editor go to apps->Gnome-Terminal->Profiles->default check silent Bell.

[i3dmaster]

wouldn't do any good for console beep.

[dbw]

Alternatively, (in gnome) you can change the System>Preferences>Sound>System Bell setting to either off or to a visual alert. I like the visual alert, which will invert the colors of the application frame briefly. This is a strong option because:
it allows beeps pre-Gnome, so I know if anything goes awry
I don't find the flashing border obnoxious
The information is still presented, just in case.

This definately changes terminal and emacs beeps.

[rfruth]

Put a strip of tape over the internal speaker, then you get a muted beep

[llimllib]

Originally Posted by WolfJay_83 For anyone with a laptop who works in a library or other quiet area, system beeps every time you press the backspace key one too many times, or just using emacs, can be quite disturbing. To shut them off: open an xterm or terminal, and enter the two lines xset b off xset b 0 0 0 Hope this helps.

Many thanks! works like a charm.

[geofs]

Do not unplug your internal speaker or make boot scripts

Edit the .inputrc file in your home directory (create it if needed) and add the line

set bell-style visible

this will replace the beep by a flashing screen. You can replace 'visible' by 'none' to get nothing at all.

You can also add (or uncomment) this line in the general /etc/inputrc file to set the bell-style for all users (overriden in ~/.inputrc).

You have to log out to enable this setting.

PS: this also works in xterm/konsole/gnome-terminal