Solved enable console beep

[tOsYZYny]

I want to have my console beep, even though the sound is rather primitive, it works, I use it for alerts so I take action. And, maybe I like the simplicity of it, though you can additionally control the tone and duration, play multiple notes, etc. You can really get creative there, if you want ...

That said, I did have it working before at some point (at this point years ago), but I'm not quite sure what changed. I am using a custom kernel (required for pf traffic shaping). I have "device speaker" in my kernel configuration and speaker in /etc/make.conf (I think I need only one).

I recall being able to use the cmdline program 'beep' to send tones directly to the speaker and that for regular users, I had to make some sort of change. I cannot even send any tones as root.

 

[SirDice]

The speaker is often not connected any more on mainboards. And some mainboards actually route the 'speaker' audio through the soundcard. The speaker(4) device refers to the speaker connection on the mainboard, usually on the headers that's also used for the power and reset switches, and HD and power LEDs.

 

[tOsYZYny]

It was working and I didn't disconnect anything since then. This is the same physical box.

 

[Datapanic]

With
speaker_load="YES"
in /boot/loader.conf, here's my beep in /usr/local/bin:

#!/bin/sh
echo "G" > /dev/speaker

 

[tOsYZYny]

With
speaker_load="YES"
in /boot/loader.conf, here's my beep in /usr/local/bin:

#!/bin/sh
echo "G" > /dev/speaker

Yes, echo "G" > /dev/speaker worked. Hmm, I need to figure out why beep doesn't work then. I take it the letter must be the note of the tone to play.

 

[Datapanic]

Yes, the G is the musical note to play. Note that this is just a little script I wrote, there is also audio/beep in the ports tree. Are you using that?

 

[tOsYZYny]

Yes, that's the one, I installed it from pkg.

#beep -d /dev/speaker
beep: ioctl SOUND_PCM_WRITE_CHANNELS(1) failed

 

[W.hâ/t]

Nice I will write a symphony script!

 

[tOsYZYny]

Cool.

 

[tOsYZYny]

So, why does echo G > /dev/speaker work whereas beep does not? Do I need to configure something differently?

 

[Erichans]

Nice I will write a symphony script!

Look at spkrtest(8) for some inspiration

 

[W.hâ/t]

FYI.

WARNING: Device "spkr" is Giant locked and may be deleted before FreeBSD 14.0

 

[tOsYZYny]

Look at spkrtest(8) for some inspiration

Thanks - I guess I will write a primitive wrapper to echo "" > /dev/speaker. I thought beep was supposed to do that essentially.

 

[Phishfry]

I am back to using rc.local and rc.shutdown.local to beep on my devices.

Beep on sucessful bootup

I have several headless machines and I would like to have a beep "song" play on successful bootup. Just like pfSense. On my APU's it beeps on BIOS POST test but i want more. What is recommended? Do I need to make a rc.d daemon that starts last? Any tutorials or similar threads? I can't find...

forums.freebsd.org

Using a service seemed overkill.

 

[_martin]

Heh, that reminded me time I was playing with PC speaker under DOS. My demo (video) to attempt to do music.

beep is using soundcard to do the sound, /dev/speaker is device file for using PIT.

 

[Phishfry]

FYI.

Giant Locked?

What does "giant locked" mean in dmesg? Example: WARNING: Device "psm" is Giant locked and may be deleted before FreeBSD 14.0. If the device gets deleted, what - if anything - replaces it?

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