GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 438707
make possible to mute sound on boot with a key combination
Last modified: 2013-12-16 18:59:37 UTC
The bug has been opened on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/114160 "Binary package hint: gdm Allright, I would love to see a way to trn the sound off temporarally at login or when the screen is ready to login. When I work in meetings and at school, I can't have the drums and login sound blaring. Yes, I could turn things down before I shutdown. But then when I boot up I get know sound when I would like it. Could it be possible or GDM to sence the SHIFT or CNTRL SHIFT keys at startup and no play sound? Then when the system is logged in, it restores the sounds to the corectl levels or simple doesn't play the sound when those keys are pressed at login. I would love the idea to be implemented. ..."
Are you talking about turning off the sound in GDM (GDM does play a beep when the login is ready for input, and can be configured to play loginready, loginfailed, and loginsuccess sounds). Or are you talking about turning off the sound in the user session after you authenticate? I think you are talking about the later (in the user session). If so, then how would this work with different sessions like gnome-session, kde-session, etc? Perhaps this could be done by just making GDM set the audio volume to 0, but this would be hard to do in a way that would work on all systems since audio device management isn't the same on all brands of UNIX/Linux. I think you can get the behavior you want without needing to change GDM. Note GDM supports custom commands so you can add a menu item that could run a command to set the audio device volume to 0. You might have to write the program yourself to actually change the volume, but then you could make GDM run the program for you via a menu selection in GDM (hit F10 to see the menu in gdmgreeter to see the menu). Pretty easy. Also you could turn on accessibility and make a gesture (like a shift or control key combination) run a program in a similar way. Read the gdm docs at http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/ to learn more about how to set custom commands and turn on accessibility gestures.
The sounds the bug submitter is speaking about are the gdm startup one and then the system login. A menu option would not work to no play the gdm startup one. Maybe gdm could have a MuteCommand config option and use it when some keys are pressed during the gdm startup?
I'd accept a patch to add such a feature, but I'm not sure that this is really critical. Currently GDM only plays a beep when it is "ready" and can be configured to play different sounds on login failure and success. Perhaps the user should just turn them off all the time if they don't want to hear them sometimes. If someone wants to add a configuration mechanism to hit a key or something to make GDM avoid playing sounds, I'd accept such a patch. I'm just not sure that such a feature is really useful to many people. Remember that the sounds are mainly there to support users with accessibility needs, like users with low vision or who are blind so that they have some additional prompting to know when the login screen is ready for keyboard input.
I am having the same issue as the bug submitter. In contrast to normal day-to-day operation, when I am in a meeting and start up my laptop I do not want to hear any sound after logging in. Therefore it must be possible to mute the laptop from gdm. Right now I can only mute the sound *after* logging in. But this is after getting a gaze from my boss...
I didn't notice this beep, when it's ready... Is there no common location, where the currend volume is stored? If not, that would be something for freedesktop…
Note that you can turn off the sound when the login screen displays by simply setting the SoundOnLogin configuration value to false in the [greeter] section of the configuration file. For example, you can edit your /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf file and put the following after the line that says "[greeter]" SoundOnLogin=false You can also turn this off by running gdmsetup and go to the "Accessibility" tab, and uncheck sound on login. Then the sound should go away. This bug report is about adding a key to mute it if you do want the sound sometimes, but want to disable it other times by hitting a key.
(In reply to comment #6) This bug report is about adding a key to mute > it if you do want the sound sometimes, but want to disable it other times by > hitting a key. > It would be better and more usefull to mute the sound completely in the gnome session after the login, not only mute SoundOnLogin. If you are in a meeting or at work or wherever you don't want a sound, you probably don't want it for the whole session or at least for the next maybe half an hour. What do you think?
Here is how -I- would do it. Even when the computer is still booting you press the Caps-lock key turning the light on. The computer then see's that and will not play any noise. It's not a matter of sound volume. It's a matter of not playing it at all. It save you from piles of embarrassment at the office. When I am at home I WANT to hear it so I know when my computer is almost ready to use. I hope that makes sense. (I originally posted this on launchpad back in '07.)
Fixed these days, now that the shell manages everything.