Boot manager beep

[Scott Long]

Wilko Bulte wrote:
> 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.
> 

It is highly irritating for everyone else, though.

Scott