In ALSA mixer, the "Beep-generator" control is named 'PC Speaker', or 'PC Beep', or 'Beep', see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Di ... Using_ALSA
The purpose of "Beep generator" is to produce "loud as hell beep" which can make Linux users deaf or, at least, semi-deaf. The reason is obvious: if a Linux user is not deaf, he (or she) may try to remove PulseAudio.
Since ALSA has a similar problem, we can learn something with Google:
commit d355c82a0191d5a3e971bd5af96cc81fe3ed25b9
Author: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz>
Date: Tue Nov 3 15:47:25 2009 +0100
ALSA: rename "PC Speaker" and "PC Beep" controls to "Beep"
To avoid confusion in control names for the standard analog PC Beep generator
using a small Internal PC Speaker, rename all related "PC Speaker" and "PC
Beep" controls to "Beep" only. This name is more universal and can be also
used on more platforms without confusion.
Introduce also "Internal Speaker" in ControlNames.txt for systems with
full-featured build-in internal speaker.
Signed-off-by: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz>
Signed-off-by: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepor ... =608388#20
For Intel AC'97 and HDA codecs, the mixer should have at least two controls for "beep generator":
1. [BOOLEAN] (ON/OFF) 'Beep Playback Switch', or 'PC Speaker Playback Switch'
2. [INTEGER] (Volume) 'Beep Playback Volume', or 'PC Speaker Playback Volume'
see: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=608388
OSS4 Mixer Intel ICH AC'97 ALC655 (default):
Code: Select all
$ ossmix | grep speaker
speaker <monovol> (currently 100)OSS4 Mixer Intel HDA ALC887 (default):
Code: Select all
$ ossmix | grep speaker
codec3.record.mix.mute.speaker1 ON|OFF (currently OFF)
codec3.record.mix.mute.speaker2 ON|OFF (currently OFF)
codec3.record.mix.mute.speaker3 ON|OFF (currently OFF)
codec3.misc.speaker [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 38.9:38.9 dB)To get "speaker" switches into your OSS mixer for Intel HDA, you may need to set "hdaudio_noskip=7" in oss_hdaudio.conf and reload OSS.
Code: Select all
$ cat /usr/lib/oss/conf/oss_hdaudio.conf | grep hdaudio_noskip
#hdaudio_noskip=0
hdaudio_noskip=71. The OSS4 "Beep-generator" does not make any harm on my computers, because it does not work for some strange reason.
2. However, it seems to produce "loud as hell beep" on other computers with Arch Linux, systemd, Gnome3, and OSS4 installed: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5222
You may find more info about the "Beep generator" in ALSA and OSS4, and the so-called "pc speaker", or "motherboard speaker" here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5225
[BUG #331589 2009-02-19] Extremely loud and intrusive system beep with (some?) HD Audio devices
Impact: Having the speaker beep enabled for snd-hda-intel cards produces a very intrusive noise which is more annoying than helpful.
Fix: For now disable the system beep in that driver.
Testcase: Working in a virtual terminal doing some action that causes a beep.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/331589
ALSA seems to be able to override pcspkr, grab the system beep, and play extremely loud beep through the internal PS Speaker (i.e. motherboard speaker) http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 27#p416250
OSS4, of course, can beep much louder than ALSA.
WARNING: Linux is dangerous for health, it can make you deaf.