Bug#566600: state of the bell

[Andrew Pimlott <andrew@pimlott.net>]

I'm having trouble with my X11 bell too (in current unstable), and I see
a few bugs outstanding (564200, 564464, 566600).  It seems to me that
there are multiple issues, and they might be getting confused.  I'll add
my observations here and try to help sort things out.

First, my .xsession has two calls to xset to control the bell:

    xset b 50 2000 50
    xset b off

(The first is there so if I do turn on the bell, it has the pitch I
want.)  But when I starts and I open an xterm and run "xset q", I see

    bell percent:  50    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100

So something is resetting the bell.  I haven't been able to figure out
what.  In fact, it even continues to happen after my X session is
running.  I run "xset b off" and a few minutes later, it is back on.  I
haven't figured out if there's a pattern to what I've been doing in
between.

Second, the "xset b" setting isn't even having an effect.  Programs like
gvim that ring the bell continue to sound, even when I've run "xset b
off" and "xset q" shows it off.  Nor does the pitch setting have any
effect.  I've read about xkbbell, but I'm not clear on the relationship
to the "old" bell or moreover what setting will turn it off.

Third, xterm isn't ringing the bell when it should.  This seems to be
acknowledged in 564200, though I don't see what the plan to fix it is.

I'm pretty perplexed by these observations, both because it seem strange
for all of them to be happening at once (this is all due to to upgrades
within the last month), and because I can't imagine that everyone's bell
started going loco or there would be more reports.

Let me know what I can do to help track this down.

Andrew