Re: No sound with Emacs 23.1.1 on Ubuntu 9.10

[Joe Casadonte <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com>]

Evidently in 9.10 the PC speaker is disabled by default:

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/linux/+bug/77010

Why they "solved" this issue by disabling the speaker is beyond me;
like many others, I feel the real solution is to let Gnome deal with
the sound. That would be a way better default behavior, IMHO.

So, to get the behavior I desired (turn on the beep but replace it
with a gentler sound) I did the following:

Edit the /etc/pulse/default.pa file and add the following lines at the
bottom of the file:

   load-sample drip-ogg /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/
drip.ogg
   load-module module-x11-bell sample=drip-ogg

Then add the following lines to my ~/.bashrc file:

   xset b on
   pactl load-module module-x11-bell sample=drip-ogg >/dev/null

The result is a pleasing system alert sound that's available pre-
login, and the same pleasing system sound available post-login, but
only after I've brought up a terminal window (which I nearly always do
first thing anyway).

The "xset b on" turns the alert sound back on, and the "pactl" line
replaces it with a more pleasing sound. I haven't yet figured out how
to do the "xset" bit globally (putting it in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
didn't work for me), nor have I figured out a way to do without it
(simply commenting out the "pcspkr" line in /etc/modprobe.d/
blacklist.conf didn't do it).

Occasionally I get both the system beep and my more pleasing sound
both happening at once; when it does happen, simply re-running the
"pactl" line fixes the issue (which I can do by opening up another
terminal window). It's not an ideal solution, but it works well enough
for me.  I hope this helps someone else!