DDG Tech Notes

So, this was driving me nuts.  I was getting constant beeps (terminal bell) from my shell work.  Most notably, it was from tab completion on command lines, or my nasty habit of hitting <ESC> at least twice in vi to get out of insert mode.  I had to make this top!

My previous experience told me to look at termcap files and the like.  Nothing I tried would work.  At the time I decided I’d had enough of the infernal beeping and wanted to do something about it, I was unfortuately without internet access.  As a last “hail mary” effort, I issued a:

ross@peloton:~$ sudo grep -i bell /etc/*
Password or swipe finger:
/etc/inputrc:# do not bell on tab-completion
/etc/inputrc:# set bell-style none
/etc/inputrc:# set bell-style visible
/etc/mime.types:application/vnd.wrq-hp3000-labelled
/etc/pnm2ppa.conf:# "colorshear 0" (the default value) and the best pattern is labelled "-2",
/etc/screenrc:# turn visual bell on
/etc/screenrc:vbell on
/etc/screenrc:vbell_msg "   Wuff  ----  Wuff!!  "
ross@peloton:~$

Woah - what’s that inputrc file?? (Note:  If you’re wondering what the “…or swipe finger:” means, see my post on getting an IBM/Lenovo laptop fingerprint reader working.)

Sure enough, that turned out to be the hit.  In my version of Ubuntu, it was as simple as uncommenting line 21 of /etc/inputrc, which read:

# set bell-style none

Changing that to

set bell-style none

meant that (after starting a new terminal session) all of the beeps were gone.  WOOHOO!