Re: git: 225639e7db68 - main - vt: Disable bell by default

From: Warner Losh <imp_at_bsdimp.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 06:05:06 UTC
On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 6:45 AM Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@leidinger.net>
wrote:

> Quoting Emmanuel Vadot <manu@bidouilliste.com> (from Fri, 22 Oct 2021
> 22:55:40 +0200):
>
> >  I honestly thought that this setting was something that you setup once
> > when you installed a new machine (which doesn't happens very often) and
> > forget about it, you know another "ah crap yes I forgot about this, why
> > do we have such insane default. Oh well now that I disabled it locally
> > I don't have to think about it and won't change the default". Instead
> > this time I didn't say to myself that I won't change it and I did.
>
> May I offer another perspective into this? Something outside of 0 and 1...
>
> I wonder if it is really the default of bell=on is what is crap, or if
> the bug Warner found is what makes it crap, or if the frequency of the
> current setting is what makes it crap (or the two last items together).
>
> Personally I dislike the bell, but not as much that I want to disable
> it. I don't mind to have it disabled (I simply enabled it directly in
> sysctl.conf even as I haven't updated to past the commit), as I think
> it gives usefull feedback. It may not give useful feedback in all
> cases where it goes off, but that's something we have influence on,
> don't we?
>
> What I don't like about the bell is the noise it makes. So what about
> changing the noise it makes to something more pleasant and asking if
> this is better and maybe acceptable to those which don't like the bell?
>

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D32619 and https://reviews.freebsd.org/D32620
might be of interest. They are only lightly tested at this point and may
be buggy. But they let you set the duration and pitch of the bell, like
we used to be able to do with syscons(4). There's likely some bugs
in this area still, but it's a start.

Warner


> I also think that disabling a feature you know it exists but you don't
> like is much more easy than to enable a feature you don't know exists.
>
> Basically I question in this email the problem you want to solve by
> disabling the bell. Does it really need to be disabled, or would a
> change of the sound and volume make it acceptable for you (you = all
> people which complain or agree to "the current one is crap -> disable
> it" .... which basically means we would need to make some kind of
> usability test what sounds better before deciding if it shall be
> disabled or not)?
>
> For me the issue with the bell would be solved if it sounds "better"
> and is less loud. I assume we could even make it configurable to some
> extend (override a hardcoded frequency and volume with a sysctl).
>
> Bye,
> Alexander.
>
> --
> http://www.Leidinger.net Alexander@Leidinger.net: PGP 0x8F31830F9F2772BF
> http://www.FreeBSD.org    netchild@FreeBSD.org  : PGP 0x8F31830F9F2772BF
>