How do I turn off start up and shut down sounds?

[adamlc09]

This feels like a super basic question, and I haven't seen anyone else ask it so I feel like I'm just missing something. How do I turn off the start up and shut down music? It's nice and, uh, musical and whatnot, but I can't stand system sounds in general and it's really bugging me. I'm running 8.10 on an HP dv9000 series laptop.

[Duggeek]

Re: How do I turn off start up and shut down sounds?

No worries, "adam"... may I call you Adam?

Linux represents a new way of looking at your computer, so some of the old windows habits are going to mislead you. The idea is to start anew and think about what you see and what you're doing. For starters, most actions in Kubuntu happen with a single-click and not a double-click. When I ask you to click something, just click it once. That keeps things simple.

The first step to answer your question is to take a look at System Settings. (should be right there in the "K" button menu)

The System Settings window is different from Control Panel in two important ways:

• first, you don't see all of the options at the same time (like Windows2000 and previous, or if you used "classic view" in XP/Vista) --these options have been sorted into some common-sense categories
  
• second, the window you see will "follow" you into the specific panels... like a web-browser, there will be a 'back' button (in this case, it's labeled Overview) that takes you back to the first window

Here's the part that's probably throwing you a loop. The name for "system sounds" in Kubuntu is Notifications. If you look right there at the top, there's a Notifications icon! Click it.

Now the window changes to the Notifications panel... but it doesn't look like there's much there. That's okay, we're on the right track. In Linux, every application has the ability to notify you with sounds... even different sounds for different applications... and all of them can be controlled right here!

On my system, the first application I see is Akregator, with just two events. This may be different on your system, so just bear with me. The list where Akregator appears is labeled Event Source and it's a drop-down list.

Pull the list down and find KDE System Notifications. If you ask me, someone should get this to be the first group that appears... if we contribute some feedback, they could make that change for us!

Now you'll see a much larger list of events. The "music" you're talking about would be the Login and Logout event sounds. Click on one of those and the options for that event appear at the bottom of the window.

Right there, a checkbox for Play a sound lets you turn the music off. (clear the checkbox) Do that for both of those events and the music won't bother you again. Click Apply (bottom-right corner) to put those changes into effect immediately--just like in windows.

The transition from windows can be frustrating... after all, Linux is such a different model for running your PC than windows ever was. Those differences are apparent in the different names and terms for--what seem to be--the same things. Half of learning is trying things, and it's easier to un-do changes in Linux than mess things up... so play around with it! I've always enjoyed the lessons I learned while playing.

When you start looking in the right places (here, for instance) you'll find more help than any windows help-file could ever hope to offer. Welcome to Linux!

Best of luck,
- Douglas

[cleb]

Re: How do I turn off start up and shut down sounds?

Well, if you hate all system sounds like I do, just go to system settings->nitifications, go to the second tab (should be something like "player") and check the no sound output option. The names may be different, i use a translated version of kde, but i think you will find it. Kopete will stop playing sounds as well, which is also useful.

[adamlc09]

Re: How do I turn off start up and shut down sounds?

Hey, thank you, both of you. Problem solved!