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How can I make ring the bell from command line using WSL (2)?

I tried:

beep echo -ne '\007' echo -e "\a"

I have set bellstyle none in /etc/inputrc.

Using Ubuntu 18.04 image.

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    Uhh why did you set bellstyle none if you want the bell to ring? echoing the bell character in my WSL produces the default windows "ding" Commented May 7, 2020 at 19:50
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    I don't want the shell to beep all the time, it is super annoying and should be turned off by default IMO. Though I would like to start a long lasting process and then play a sound, so I know when it is finished and don't have to check visually all the time. E.g. I can go read something. Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 19:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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In WSL Ubuntu or Alpine with default path setup, you can depend on .net's Console.Beep method:

powershell.exe '[console]::beep(261.6,700)'

It makes a handy alias for etc/profile or ~/.bashrc:

alias bloop="powershell.exe '[console]::beep(261.6,700)'"

Define a helper function to create multiple tones:

_beep () { powershell.exe "[console]::beep($1,$2)" } alias bleep="_beep 1000 800" # A strong bleep (for profanity) alias beep="_beep 2000 300" # Quick yet noticeable beep alias blip="_beep 4000 80" # A less distracting blip

Example: Blip on success, but bleep on failure:

make && blip || bleep
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  • If PATH is broken, it might be due to these (1, 2) WSL settings. In a pinch, adding /mnt/c/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/ to the path may fix the issue Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 1:22
  • It works ! :-). Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 22:10

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