Version: (using KDE KDE 3.1.1) Installed from: Debian testing/unstable Packages OS: Linux Settings of the system bell are very confusing and I think Its a real BUG: The system bell can be configured so that you hear a beep from your pc speaker or the other option is that kde system bells come through your soundcard (default?) There are two settings about system bell in kcontrol: 1. Sound & Multimedia --> System Bell here you can configure whether to hear the bell in pc speaker or with normal sound 2. Regional & Accessibility -> Accessibility --> Bell In the "Audible Bell" field you can tell KDE to use the system Bell or not or to use another Sound for Systembell. Two Issues now: 1. IMHO the second setting is somewhat useless because system bell is configured with the system notification settings. If "Use System Bell" is deactivated you will never hear the system bell regardless what you try to configure in "normal" SOund and system notification settings --> very confusing, common pitfall IMHO, at least for we it was. 2. There is a bug in the handling of the two options as they influence each other in a very weired way: I will try to figure this out: To test the bell I start Konsole and hit the backspace key --> The bell symbol shows that a system bell has been triggered so I can check If I can hear something or not. in kcontrol: "Use system bell instead of system notification" --> disabled "Use system bell" (Accessibility) --> disabled ==> System bell does not work. enable "Use system bell instead of system notification" --> no change, user cannot hear anything bell seems broken to the user. enable "Use system bell" in Accessibility --> pc speaker beeps on system bell event. "Why do I have to change settings in KDE's great support for disabled people to hear a normal system bell??" Now the weired part: disable "Use system bell instead of system notification" again ==> Wow! System bell through normal sound. BUT: check the "Use system bell" (Accessibility) again! Its disabled now, too! But the bell still works. Now log off and on again --> bell does not work anymore because both bell settings are disabled. There is something very strange going on here. Daniel? Do you belive me? -Marc
I do :}
Yes, it is confusing - I have just activated system bell thanks to above description after fighting it for few hours on gentoo with kde 3.2.1 This has to be changed IMO.
Although I think the arts version of the system beep is cute (it's a much nicer sound, and it works even on systems without an hardware bell), I'd much prefer to have the "old fashioned" hardware bell, at least as an option. The arts version has several weaknesses compared to the hardware bell: the bell is about 1/4 second late, and it won't repeat within about 1 second. (Try - in konsole, press Ctrl-G twice). In KDE 3.2 (Mandrake 10.0), none of the above permutations will give me a hardware bell.
It's still broken in the current Mandrake Cooker (KDE 3.2.2). Please can I have my old-fashioned pc speaker beep back! It's not just Konsole - even Mozilla can't make an ordinary system beep. Incidentally, the 1/4 second delay which is so annoying can be reduced by reducing the buffer size for the sound - but this can cause problems of its own.
The problem/confusion persists in kde 3.3.2. If "Use system bell instead of system notification" is enabled and "Use system bell" (Accessibility) is not enabled then the system bell test gives no sound. Both have to enabled to make the sound test work. Its indeed very confusing even to users who have been using kde for some time. FYI, I have disabled arts.
Fixed it! At least, I found out what Mandrake did to break the system bell in newer versions (all versions after 9.2). It's a kernel-2.6-ism, and is simply a failure to load the pcspkr module. So just "modprobe pcspkr" in rc.local An alternative is to set system notification to run a program instead of playing a sound, and trigger gnubeep.
>> enable "Use system bell instead of system notification" --> no change, user cannot hear anything >> bell seems broken to the user. Yes. I thought it had something to do with my new kernel, but I just couldn't find the problem; I had "Use system bell instead of system notification" checked. Then I found the other other, and was like "-.-".
This is still valid on KDE4
*** Bug 158783 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Hello! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this project has been unmaintained for many years so I am closing this bug. Kcontrol has been replaced by System Settings in Plasma. Please give the latest version of that a try, and open a new bug in "systemsettings" if you continue to have an issue. Thank you!