Boot manager beep

[Wilko Bulte]

On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 07:49:33AM -0700, Scott Long wrote..
> Thomas E. Zander wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >just installed a fresh 6.0 on a laptop, using the standard boot
> >manager. The problem is: The default volume of pcspeaker can't be tuned
> >in bios or anywhere else before loading a sound driver (in this case
> >snd_ich). This especially means the pc speaker volume is always set to
> >100% at every boot which results in a horribly loud beep which I am
> >afraid the built-in "speakers" can't do very often :-)
> >
> >So what about this one:
> >
> >--- /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/boot0/boot0.S
> >+++ boot0.S
> >@@ -201,9 +201,7 @@
> > /*
> >  * Start of input loop.  Beep and take note of time
> >  */
> >-main.10:	movb $ASCII_BEL,%al		# Signal
> >-		callw putchr			#  beep!
> >-		xorb %ah,%ah			# BIOS: Get
> >+main.10:	xorb %ah,%ah			# BIOS: Get
> > 		int $0x1a			#  system time
> > 		movw %dx,%di			# Ticks when
> > 		addw _TICKS(%bp),%di		#  timeout
> >
> >This might be an issue on other architectures (amd64?) as well, I
> >haven't checked that right now.
> >
> >TIA,
> >Riggs
> >
> 
> The beep is useful for some people who run headless systems, but it
> is indeed annoying for others, especially with laptops in quiet places.
> We should probably conditionalize this on a variable that can go into
> /etc/make.conf.  Note that amd64 uses the i386 bits here.

Originally it was introduced (IIRC) to accomodate visually impaired users 
of FreeBSD.  So the install CDs etc better keep it enabled.

-- 
Wilko Bulte				wilko at FreeBSD.org