Global options¶

-e DEVICE, --device=DEVICE

Explicitly set the device beep shall use to generate beep tones. When not given a device explicitly, beep runs through an internal list of devices until one appears to work.

--debug, --verbose

Make the beep program more verbose.

Tone options¶

-f FREQ

Beep with a tone frequency of FREQ Hz, where 0 < FREQ < 20000. As a general ballpark, the regular terminal beep is around 750Hz. For backwards compatibility, you can give FREQ as a floating point number, but beep will round that to integer values as the kernel APIs expect them.

-l LEN

Beep for a tone length of LEN milliseconds.

-r REPEATS

Repeat the tone including delays REPEATS times (defaults to 1).

-d DELAY | -D DELAY

Specify a delay of DELAY milliseconds between repetitions. Small letter -d specifies that this delay should only occur between beeps, that is, it should not occur after the last repetition. Capital letter -D specifies that the delay should occur after every repetition, including the last one. Normally, -d is what you want, but if, for example, you are stringing several beep commands together to play the star wars anthem, you may want control over every delay.

-n, --new

The --new option allows you to chain multiple beeps together on a single command line. Each time the --new is used, beep starts treating all further arguments as though they were for a new beep. So for example:

beep -f 1000 -n -f 2000 -n -f 1500

would produce a sequence of three beeps, the first with a frequency of 1000Hz (and otherwise default values), then a second beep with a frequency of 2000Hz (again, with things like delay and reps being set to their defaults), then a third beep, at 1500Hz. This is different from specifying a -r value, since -r repeats the same beep multiple times, whereas --new allows you to specify different beeps. After a --new, the new beep is created with all the default values, and any of these can be specified without altering values for preceding (or later) beeps. See the EXAMPLES section if this managed to confuse you.

-s, -c

Both the -s and the -c option put beep into input processing mode. -s tells beep to read from stdin, and beep after each newline. -c tells beep to beep after every character. In both cases, the beep will also echo the input back out to stdout, which makes it easy to slip beep into a text processing pipeline. See the EXAMPLES section.

Other Actions¶

-v, -V, --version

Display beep version information and exit.

Devices and Permissions¶

/dev/input/by-path/platform-pcspkr-event-spkr

Uses the evdev API, and system administrator can allow access to any set of users and groups using the normal file permissions.

/dev/tty0

Uses the console API, and the kernel insists you are root or own the TTY.

/dev/vc/0

Uses the console API, and the kernel insists you are root or own the TTY.

beep does not support running as setuid root or via sudo(1).

For non-root uses, the system administrator can set up a udev(7) rule to allow write access to /dev/input/by-path/platform-pcspkr-event-spkr for certain users and/or user groups. For details, see the beep /usr/share/doc/beep/PERMISSIONS.md file.

APIs¶

evdev

Uses the input event device driver, which means running write(2) on /dev/input/by-path/platform-pcspkr-event-spkr.

console

Uses the ancient console API, which means running the KIOCSOUND ioctl(2) on a tty device like /dev/tty0 or /dev/vc/0.

Concurrent Invocations¶

Sound Volume¶

If you have a standalone PC, however, chances are you have a piezo beeper connected to the mainboard. If you prioritize a loud beep over a certain frequency beep, you can choose to beep at a frequency close to the resonance frequency of the piezo beeper. Typical piezo beepers have a resonance frequency around 2000Hz, so you can test frequencies around that range. The author's piezo beeper is the loudest at about 2050Hz.

If you have a PC laptop, chances are that your laptop will not have a piezo beeper hardware inside and that it will route the output of the pcspkr circuit to the laptop's internal speakers via the sound card mixer. In that case, you can and/or must change the mixer level for the beeper using a sound card mixer application.

Frequency Table¶