Can I make grub beep?

Can I make grub beep?

[John J. Boyer]

I am setting up a machine that will dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 
7. Can I make grub beep when it is time to press the key to chose which 
OS should boot? 

Thaniks,
John

-- 
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Tim Chase]

On March  2, 2013, John J. Boyer wrote:
> I am setting up a machine that will dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and
> Windows 7. Can I make grub beep when it is time to press the key to
> chose which OS should boot? 

You should be able to add (or uncomment by removing the leading "#") a
line like

  GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" 

in /etc/default/grub followed by running "update-grub" as root (or
via sudo).  Those numbers can be expanded to play a tune (the first
number is the tempo where 60 is a 1-second base, 120 is a half-second
base; followed by pairs of frequency-in-hertz and the duration).  If
you want to get crazy, some folks have done the Mario Brothers tune
as the boot beep

http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/8275/grub2-set-super-mario-as-startup-tune

Hope it gives you hours of fun. (grins)

-tim

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[John G. Heim]

I use debian, not ubuntu, but I believe the process for getting a beep at the grub boot prompt is the same. There is a file /etc/default/grub with a line at the bottom that is commented out. You uncomment that line and run update-grub. This is all explained in the file itself. You can also make it play a tune. I've included an example line that plays a few notes of "On Wisconsin" This is not entirely trivial in that it makes it very clear when to interrupt the boot process in order to select an operating systems. I always tell my end users to press the down arrow once when they hear "On Wisconsin". 

# Uncomment this line for a beep at start up
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
# Play "On Wisconsin" at start up
GRUB_INIT_TUNE="1000 334 1 334 1 0 1 334 1 0 1 261 1 334 1 0 1 392 2 0 4 


On Mar 2, 2013, at 7:53 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:

> I am setting up a machine that will dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 
> 7. Can I make grub beep when it is time to press the key to chose which 
> OS should boot? 
> 
> Thaniks,
> John
> 
> -- 
> John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
> Abilitiessoft, Inc.
> http://www.abilitiessoft.com
> Madison, Wisconsin USA
> Developing software for people with disabilities
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Samuel Thibault]

John G. Heim, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 12:31:29 -0600, a écrit :
> You can also make it play a tune. I've included an example line that plays a few notes of "On Wisconsin" This is not entirely trivial in that it makes it very clear when to interrupt the boot process in order to select an operating systems. I always tell my end users to press the down arrow once when they hear "On Wisconsin". 

I've never thought it could be so useful to be able to play a full song,
interesting :)

Samuel

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[John J. Boyer]

This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that 
correspond to various musical notes. I would like to set my grub to play 
the first few bars of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Thanks,
John

On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 01:05:56AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> John G. Heim, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 12:31:29 -0600, a écrit :
> > You can also make it play a tune. I've included an example line that plays a few notes of "On Wisconsin" This is not entirely trivial in that it makes it very clear when to interrupt the boot process in order to select an operating systems. I always tell my end users to press the down arrow once when they hear "On Wisconsin". 
> 
> I've never thought it could be so useful to be able to play a full song,
> interesting :)
> 
> Samuel
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list

-- 
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[marbux]

On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 8:46 PM, John J. Boyer
<john.boyer@abilitiessoft.com> wrote:
> This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that
> correspond to various musical notes. I would like to set my grub to play
> the first few bars of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

I don't know about the calculation but there are lots of Linux apps
for making music files. Reviews of some here.
<http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-free-linux-music-creation-tools-artist-budget/>.
I don't know how they are on accessibility.

This site seems to be the motherlode for info on all things audio on
Linux. <http://linux-sound.org/>. If you navigate down the left frame
to " Linux Audio Bundles & Distributions", that's a link taking you to
a page with a bunch of apps and audio distros, including at least one
that's a live CD and another that's a live DVD. I haven't tried any of
the above.

Best regards,

Paul

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Samuel Thibault]

John J. Boyer, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 22:46:21 -0600, a écrit :
> This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that 
> correspond to various musical notes.

The frequencies can be calculated by multiplying / dividing the base A4
(440Hz) by the 12th square root of 2 (1.0594630943592953), but it's
simpler to just use a table like

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

Samuel

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Rob Harris]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note#Note_frequency_.28hertz.29

It got a bit involved, but it is all there!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John J. Boyer" <john.boyer@abilitiessoft.com>
To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list@redhat.com>
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 4:46 AM
Subject: Re: Can I make grub beep?


This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that
correspond to various musical notes. I would like to set my grub to play
the first few bars of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Thanks,
John

On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 01:05:56AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> John G. Heim, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 12:31:29 -0600, a écrit :
> > You can also make it play a tune. I've included an example line that 
> > plays a few notes of "On Wisconsin" This is not entirely trivial in that 
> > it makes it very clear when to interrupt the boot process in order to 
> > select an operating systems. I always tell my end users to press the 
> > down arrow once when they hear "On Wisconsin".
>
> I've never thought it could be so useful to be able to play a full song,
> interesting :)
>
> Samuel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list

-- 
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

_______________________________________________
Blinux-list mailing list
Blinux-list@redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list 

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[John G. Heim]

Yeah, as Samuel said in his response, I looked it up in a table when I 
figured out how to make it play "On Wisconsin".

I'd be interested in copying your grub directive for playing Ode to Joy. 
When you get that figured out, would you post it here, please? I am 
always looking for more tunes because I like to have grub play different 
tunes depending on the boot medium and version of the operating system. 
  If I'm trying to boot from a CD and it plays "On Wisconsin" instead of 
"Close Encounters", I know it didn't work.

Anybody else have interesting ones, let me know.



On 3/3/2013 10:46 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:
> This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that
> correspond to various musical notes. I would like to set my grub to play
> the first few bars of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
>
> Thanks,
> John
>
> On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 01:05:56AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>> John G. Heim, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 12:31:29 -0600, a écrit :
>>> You can also make it play a tune. I've included an example line that plays a few notes of "On Wisconsin" This is not entirely trivial in that it makes it very clear when to interrupt the boot process in order to select an operating systems. I always tell my end users to press the down arrow once when they hear "On Wisconsin".
>>
>> I've never thought it could be so useful to be able to play a full song,
>> interesting :)
>>
>> Samuel
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blinux-list mailing list
>> Blinux-list@redhat.com
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Luke Yelavich]

On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 03:46:21PM EST, John J. Boyer wrote:
> This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that 
> correspond to various musical notes. I would like to set my grub to play 
> the first few bars of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

There is an algorithm to work this out. I used to know it, but can no longer remember it.

Luke

Re: Can I make grub beep?

[Luke Yelavich]

On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 07:29:32PM EST, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> John J. Boyer, le Sun 03 Mar 2013 22:46:21 -0600, a écrit :
> > This is a bit off-topic, but how can one calculate the frequencies that 
> > correspond to various musical notes.
> 
> The frequencies can be calculated by multiplying / dividing the base A4
> (440Hz) by the 12th square root of 2 (1.0594630943592953), but it's
> simpler to just use a table like
> 
> http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

Thanks, will keep that URL handy.

Luke