Disable start-up sound in 16.04

Question

Went to System Settings -> Sound and nada. Ubuntu Tweak does't appear in the Software Center anymore. How can one disable these dang bongos in 16.04?

Solution 1

At the login screen use the icon in the upper right to mute the sound. The setting is persistent.

Solution 2

The file that plays when the login screen is shown is:

/usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg

Delete or rename it to prevent the sound from playing altogether, or replace/redirect it to make another sound play instead.

AFAIK this is not unique to 16.04, so this should also apply to all other versions of Ubuntu.

Solution 3

I'm Using Ubuntu 16.10. The answer is surprisingly simple. From the Login screen, mute the sound (the setting is positioned in the top right corner) and that's it. Muting the login screen sound does not affect your session sound. I suggest you also try this for other versions of Ubuntu before installing additional software or tweaks.

Solution 4

If the audio-icon is not visible at the login screen, try restarting the system. I have a fresh install of Xenial, and the audio controls only show at startup on initial boot, not on subsequent logouts.

Solution 5

In both 14.04 and 16.04 /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/system-ready.ogg is actually a link to dialog-question.ogg as seen below.

$ ll /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/
total 340
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Jul 22  2014 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root   4096 Jul 22  2014 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   5016 Mar  2  2011 bell.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8997 Mar  2  2011 button-pressed.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   4035 Mar  2  2011 button-toggle-off.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   4035 Mar  2  2011 button-toggle-on.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104421 Mar  2  2011 desktop-login.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  26925 Mar  2  2011 desktop-logout.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10660 Mar  2  2011 dialog-error.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   5377 Mar  2  2011 dialog-information.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9851 Mar  2  2011 dialog-question.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  12217 Mar  2  2011 dialog-warning.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  22733 Mar  2  2011 message-new-instant.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10429 Mar  2  2011 message.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  29299 Mar  2  2011 phone-incoming-call.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7996 Mar  2  2011 phone-outgoing-busy.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   4792 Mar  2  2011 phone-outgoing-calling.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  17274 Mar  2  2011 service-login.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  14573 Mar  2  2011 service-logout.ogg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 Feb 26  2016 system-ready.ogg -> dialog-question.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6994 Mar  2  2011 window-slide.ogg

This being the case modifying the link isn't really modifying a system file, it's modifying a pointer to a system file. It should be simple enough to point it elsewhere to the ogg file of your choice. for instance the slightly more pleasant service-login.ogg with ln -sfT service-login.ogg system-ready.ogg or you could rename or delete the link nullifying it's usefulness but I would prefer to simply repoint it to something I might want to hear.

Sources:

Testing on 14.04 and 16.04 with Unity DE.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/88824/how-can-i-edit-symlinks

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/ln.1.html

View more solutions

Comments

[Elder Geek]

Do you still have this issue? Please accept the answer that was most useful to you so that others with the same issue can find quality answers that work. Thank you!

[Ivan Perez]

Deleting or replacing system files should be discouraged. Those files will be overwritten with every update. There must be a better solution.

[Ky.]

@IvanPerez do you have a source for that knowledge? These are such trivial and old files that I doubt they're included in the update diff.

[Ivan Perez]

Well, you don't really control what those upgrades will bring. An upgrade that follows all guidelines, passes lintian, and only affects the files it owns, could still undo your changes. And do you consider it a good setup that, if you re-install a package, you "break" things? (By break I mean that a feature no longer works, in this case, the chime being disabled is the feature). (I know my message sounds very direct, but I don't mean it as an attack.) In my case I muted the volume in the log-in screen and the change was permanent and independent from my settings once I log in.

[Ky.]

When it comes right down to it, an update could wipe system files, preferences, user data, et al if it wanted to (or if it's created poorly). I agree this is not an ideal solution, but it is the one I've been using and works reliably for me (and has for many years). If you have a better solution that's guaranteed to be persisted between updates, please write that as your own answer and I'll certainly +1 it!

[Ivan Perez]

As other solutions suggest, all you need to do is to mute the sound in the login screen. The setting is persistent, and it does not affect sound volume after logging in. This worked for me.

[Ky.]

Hm... still seems more fragile to me. More prone to mischievous or clumsy people unmuting it.

[Elder Geek]

This is close, but not entirely accurate. See my answer.

[Ky.]

@ElderGeek Oh yeah I knew all that (hence my suggestion to "redirect" it) but didn't think it was worth pointing out XD

[EsmaeelE]

Yes it works on my machine UBUNTU 16.04 lts

[joshbroton]

The most logical method for me

[Elder Geek]

You might want to note that your answer is gnome specific as the content of the libcanberra-ready-sound.desktop file indicates.. For the modify symlinks solution see my answer

[Ky.]

Hm... seems fragile to me. Prone to mischievous or clumsy people unmuting it.

[Organic Marble]

What a nightmare scenario! Thanks for raising this concern.

[Ky.]

Please accompany any downvotes with a comment about how I can make useful answers in the future 🙂