Hi All: As part of the OpenSolaris accessible live CD and install work, we play audible prompts (beeps) at the keyboard layout and language selection screens presented during the boot of the live CD. These prompts allow blind people to determine that they are being asked for input. When coupled with separate written documentation, the user can then work their way through the boot and install the system without sighted assistance.
On *some* machines, notably this nice little Toshiba Portege R500 laptop in my lap, the console beep doesn't seem to work. As a means for testing this, I do an "svcadm disable gdm", login, and then type "/usr/bin/printf '\a'". I know the beep *can* work -- if I press/hold the Escape key while powering the machine on, I get a nice loud beep. Aside from being able to set the volume level of the beep (which I have set to the loudest setting), I cannot see anything in the BIOS that lets me enable/disable the system bell. I've also tried mucking with /etc/kbd/default to no avail. I'm not sure if this is a hardware issue or a driver issue, and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas. Will PS - my next step is to boot a live CD from a different distribution (e.g., Ubuntu) to see if it exhibits the same problem. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
