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Re: PC speaker stopped working after upgrade to Squeeze



On 03/10/11 14:50, Camaleón wrote:
> On Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:04:09 +0100, Roger Lynn wrote:
>> When I upgraded my Lenny AMD64 system to Squeeze earlier this year, the
>> PC speaker (ie motherboard buzzer) stopped working. 
> 
> Are you using GNOME?

No. I actually use KDE, but as this is a problem on console before KDE
(or KDM) have been run, I don't think that should affect it. The KDE
notifications are set to use the system bell and that works if the
console bell is working.

> IIRC, beeper started to use "canberra" and associated libraries to play 
> motherboard's beep sound and so it outputs to PC speakers instead to the 
> boards one. Have you checked if the PC speaker output volume is at high 
> level?

There is a beep entry in AlsaMixer, but it doesn't seem to do anything.
There are no packages with "canberra" in the name installed.

>> To get it to work I have to remove and re-add the pcspkr kernel module
>> using modprobe every time I reboot. 
> 
> (...)
> 
>> Is that relevant?
> 
> Relevant for what? :-?

I quoted some text from dmesg about some sort of PCBeep device that I've
never heard of. I wondered if it might have anything to do with my lack
of a working bell.

> It means there is a PC Speaker device detected by the system, which is 
> fine.

But it only works the second time. Could something be disabling it at
boot, which is then overridden when I reload the module?

>> My kernel is currently linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 2.6.32-37 and the
>> motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P.
>> 
>> Why do I need to reload the pcspkr module? 
> 
> If you are in GNOME, most sure because of the above explanation.
> 
>> Is there any way I can get it to work from boot? 
> 
> You can get the module to be automatically loaded at booting by adding 
> the corresponding module (pcspkr) into "/etc/modules".

pcspkr is already being loaded at boot. The problem is that it doesn't
work until I remove it and load it again. Is adding a module which is
already being loaded to /etc/modules really likely to make any difference?

>> Is this be a kernel or udev bug, or just a weird hardware / software
>> configuration combination?
> 
> Maybe a mix of them. I still have not clear why it works in some 
> computers and doesn't in others.

It used to work on this one until Squeeze.

Thanks for your assistance,

Roger


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