Bug 177861

This also isn't fixed in KDE 4.2.2 (debian sid) yet.

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

IMO, this is a serious regression from versions of Konsole included in versions 3.5.x of KDE.  For me when working in the shell the audio feedback from the shell is important for tab completion and other tasks.  I see no reason why the standard PC beep (ASCII Bell, Ctl-G) cannot coexist with user selectable sounds for audible notification.

Please consider enabling the PC style beep once again as I find Konsole to be the best terminal emulator, but the lack of the PC bell is making it less pleasurable to use.

Could we get some commentary on why the priority and severity were dropped?  thanks.

Yes of course, I'm sorry I didn't mention them previously.  The reason is that I believe the majority of my users either have speakers or would prefer silence to the awful noise the PC beeper makes.  I can accept that is not everyone - but I think it is a minority who do.

I can understand catering to the majority of users.  Still, I'm somewhat puzzled as KDE applications have historically had options for everything most of which I've been content to leave at their default settings.

Is there a recommended sound file that would give a similar beep sound as the PC speaker?  Will that file be played quickly enough to be useful for tab completion, Mutt notification, or Aptitude search failure notification?

I suppose that all we're requesting is an option even if it is off by default.  Thanks.

Nate, I can't tell for sure but it seems like our problem might be "solved" if https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160230 ends up getting fixed.

I can also send you a hacked libkdeinit4_konsole.so that rings the bell if you'd like.  Not sure how well it works on alien systems though (mine is Fedora 10 i386).

I'm running Debian Sid so I doubt your version of libkdeinit4_konsole.so would play well here.

As for the system notification, it doesn't work now, as expected.  Hopefully that doesn't disable other sounds.  Good catch.

> Nate, I can't tell for sure but it seems like our problem
> might be "solved" if https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160230 ends up getting fixed.

Yes it would and actually if there are enough users who want a system bell then that would be the right place to put it.

> Still, I'm somewhat puzzled as KDE applications have
> historically had options for everything most
> of which I've been content to leave at their default settings.

Unfortunately there is a cost to having lots of options, especially redundant ones that very few people use.  Now obviously a program like Konsole is a power-user tool and does need to be flexible in many respects so it will have more options than something like Dolphin but the same basic constraints apply.

* If the default settings are wrong, you don't find out.  Users either give up using the program, or they spend a long time finding the option and then don't tell you about their experience.  If the option obviously isn't there then I'm more likely to get feedback about it.
* It complicates the UI - Commonly used options get buried under the obscure ones.  Obviously this can be mitigated by structuring the dialog carefully but that still requires more time and effort.
* It complicates the code.  For this reason some of the older settings modules in System Settings which were ported from KDE 3 have options which don't make sense any more or just plain don't work.  Have a look at the joystick one for example.  This just looks unprofessional.

I agree that this is a very important option. As Nate Bargmann wrote[1], "Playing a sound file is too slow for tab completion and other instances where Bash generates the ASCII Bell character (Ctl-G). [...] The lack of the Bell character creates a severe limitation on feedback from the shell for various tasks."

[1] http://tinyurl.com/on8bsa

Please add my vote to this, for exactly the reasons stated above, especially the previous comment about tab completions.

I am now running KDE 4.3.0 rc1 with Konsole 2.3 on Kubuntu 9.04.  While the test button in the System Notifications tab of the System Settings app does generate the desired beep, there still seems to be no way for Konsole to utilize it that I can find.  Hopefully, this functionality can be added soon.

I also find the nice, friendly, helpful system beep an essential part of using Konsole. 

I'd go further and say that the lack of system-bell as audible-feedback on tab-completion errors is an essential part of the most essential application I use on Linux. I will be stuck on KDE3.5, or Gnome, until this bug is fixed.
Please, can we fix this? 

(Yes, it *is* nicer than anything else, if set up right. I recommend 440Hz, 50ms duration; and with "set show-all-if-ambigious on" in inputrc. I do understand why some people dislike it, but they inevitably have a distro which failed to set show-all-if-ambigious, or have pcspkr set too loud).

I can't fix this myself, but I'll happily make a £50 donation to the KDE project if this gets fixed before Mandriva 2010.0 is released (Nov 09).

This is a serious regression. And it really isn't just me, but most people I talk to as well - "Konsole in latest KDE 4? Yeah, they broke the system bell! :-("

comment #5 is definitely wrong!

I've been thinking about this for a while, particularly regarding Robert's concern of cluttering the UI.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider "overloading" the Play a Sound selection in the Configure Notifications dialog.  

For example, if the box is ticked for Play a Sound but no file name is selected, play the system bell.  If a file name is selected, play that instead.  If the box is not ticked, play no sound at all.  This seems like a reasonable way to accommodate everyone and adds no additional options to the UI.

Re #15, may I suggest that the way KDE3.5 handles it (with a separate option for Bell, in the Settings menu) is the correct way.

In my view, KDE system notifications are things that the GUI does, whereas the terminal bell is something that Bash does. Some people may wish to route the terminal bell via a KDE system notification.

[Actually, I'd like to do the opposite, and route the KDE system notification sounds back to the pc-speaker, so I can reserve my soundcard for music. As a classical music fan, there is a wide dynamic range, which means that when the amplifier is set to a comfortable listening level, the system notification sounds are extremely loud!]

BTW, I found a really ugly, if essential, workaround.

Konsole lets you set a command to run as a system notification. The answer is to install the "beep" program, and that command can then be "beep -l 50 -f 440".
The response time isn't ideal though.

Thanks Richard!

As you say, not ideal, but certainly better than a mute Konsole.

Now that bug #160230 seems to be addressed (not confirmed, though), is this bug still an issue? Thanks.

*** Bug 209858 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

yes, this is still an issue I'm afraid.  I cannot make the normal system bell be used by konsole no matter what settings I play around with in notifications.  running kdebase-4.4.2-1.fc11.x86_64 these days.

Under 4.6.3, the trick is to set Konsole's notification to run the command: "xkbbell -force" 

Also, it's necessary to enable the pcspkr (modprobe pcspkr), which some distro's unhelpfully blacklist.

Richard Neill's xkbbell work-around does work, for those who come across this ticket.

Settings->Configure Notifications->Run Command->/usr/bin/xkbbell -force
for "Bell in (Non-)Visible Session".

Git commit 2ba24db12c80fb834d139a69f7d15d22b5c1b40f by Jekyll Wu.
Committed on 17/02/2012 at 10:26.
Pushed by jekyllwu into branch 'master'.

Add per-profile option 'BellMode' for choosing the type of bell

There are no GUI elements for controlling that option, so it is a hidden
option at the moment.

To configure this option manually, put following lines into some konsole
profile under ~/.kde4/share/apps/konsole/ :

    [Terminal Features]
    BellMode=N

Where N could be 0 for system beep, 1 for system notification and 2 for
visual bell. That mapping might change before next major release.
Related: bug 155622

REVIEW: 104013

M  +2    -0    src/Profile.cpp
M  +12   -0    src/Profile.h
M  +3    -0    src/ViewManager.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/konsole/2ba24db12c80fb834d139a69f7d15d22b5c1b40f

That commit brings back most choices in KDE3 konsole. No GUI for configuring at the moment, because I'm in doubt with beep and visual bell and how many average users would like them. See http://lists.kde.org/?l=konsole-devel&m=132940437430773&w=2 for my thoughts about those bells :)

Please get the latest code from https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kde-baseapps/konsole/repository, and check whether system beep really works. I have no idea about it, because on my machine beep never works under any environment.

#25 The beep option does work.  Thanks.

I always turn off the beep and visual beep as they are highly annoying to me.

*** Bug 155622 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Won't add gui option for a beep.  Won't add option for multi-row tabs gui.  I now find myself searching for something better than Gnome Konsole.

Still broken as of right now. (4.13)

This is not about changing the default setting... it is about allowing bell behaviour to be configurable (current behaviour, pcspkr, visual, playing a sound sample...), like it used to be.

Tested the hidden setting introduced in #24.
0 does play a "bell" sample (doesn't use cspkr)
1 does nothing (silence)

So it doesn't work the way it was expected (0 pcspkr, 1 what 0 is actually doing).

pcspkr does work with xterm and fbcon.

It's really irritating not to be able to make konsole work like I'm used to and prefer. I'm sure #25 can understand, as he too has his own preferences.

Recent versions have what you requested.