[wellylug] Non-console Beep for linux ?

[Tony Wills]

At 10:19 18/09/2005, David Antliff wrote:
>On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Tony Wills wrote:
>>Thanks for that, but "beep" is using the console device or the tty device 
>>etc, I want something that can tweek the built in speaker on a headless 
>>system that doesn't have a vga card, and the console if any is on a 
>>serial line.  But I don't want the serial console/tty to beep, I want the 
>>built in speaker to beep!  So I probably want some naughty program that 
>>pokes directly at the hardware, or presumably there is a BIOS ROM 
>>function that beeps (but then does Linux use any BIOS functions?).
>
>Well, there's a PC speaker driver in the kernel source that's deselected 
>by default. Perhaps you could use that?
>
>Let me know if you feel you need some help invoking the driver. I have a 
>bit of spare time this morning.

Sounds like a possibility.  I'm working on a version of Coyote Linux for a 
router, I'm trying to make it a complete embedded device with no 
screen/keyboard etc and generally minimal hardware - no room for a video 
card (and no onboard video on this old motherboard).  I've recompiled the 
source to remove the VGA drivers and can connect to it with a serial 
terminal or via SSH.

All I want to do is beep (or play a little tune) when it has finished 
booting successfully (maybe other tones for error conditions).

So tell me about the de-selected kernel speaker driver - is this something 
I can easily enable it by changing a flag and recompiling the kernel?  How 
is it used (is it a /dev type device) ?

Thanks,

Tony.