The original purpose of the start up sound was to let you know the comppuer had finished booting. Old computers took so long people often walked away after pressing the button.
In the Good Old Days (tm), I routinely relied on that startup sound to confirm that Windows XP (RIP) had finished its slow chug to the top of the hill and was ready to roll for the day. Even though bootup is incredibly fast, I still miss the charm of the startup sound.
Finally, after all these years, I can boot my Arch install to the sound of the PS1 startup. Better yet, imagine autostarting mpv in fullscreen to the actual PS1 startup video! Thanks Derek you made my day :D
Old Network/System Admin here.... To be honest.... Event Sounds are/were important to me. Being in a busy computer environment, it was nice to hear a notice when a task error-ed or completed. Especially if your attention was focused on something else. Unless I specifically program the event sound myself via script, you pretty much barely get standard event sounds in Linux. Windows still much better at this to this day. I wish someone would come up with a standard event sounds system for Linux. I've been looking for decades. Sound events are evidently a non-issue with Linux users. The Cinnamon Desktop has come the closest with a system to define sound events via GUI. Except with Cinnamon you can't define new events. Like emptying the trash can.
a cool startup sound (and entire sound scheme) I don't think many people know about are the windows longhorn sounds. I believe they were supposed to be the Vista sounds before they got changed to what was in the final product. they sound really cool and unique and I actually use them in my KDE desktop
Cinnamon still has it and I love it. My Windows friend said: "Oh, a start up Sound. I wish Windows still had one." He uses Linux now, but also for other reasons.
I've been using the same startup sound for decades (since Windows 95, and now on Linux Mint). It's Darth Vader from when he communicates with the emperor via hologram in The Empire Strikes Back: "What is thy bidding, my master?" :)
Very great! Actually I did this exactly the same way. I also added some sound to the kill1 and shiftTo functions. I like it (for now), but everyone else gets annoyed by it. 😁
I use --no-video on mpv all the time to stream my playlist from youtube without the need to open any application or windows because I have it bound to a keyboard shortcut :D so useful.
Do you have any way to do that with audio streams? I have a few live radio stream feed, but I could never make it work that way using mpv. I can give you an audio url to try yourself if you want.
Older PCs used to have BIOS beeps during the POST sequence to help troubleshoot issues or know all was good. Annoying at 2 A.M. when everyone else was sleeping. AOL played an announcement when you logged in and had mail. Now that sound I miss - it became iconic.
They still have, I remember fixing a laptop two years ago, I had to search manufacturers documentation of boot up error beeps (like x number of short followed by y long beeps means that the flux capacitor is missing ;) ) and found that it was an issue with the RAM sticks - replaced the other one and it worked. They just tend to not make any beeps when everything is OK, which used to be the case in the good ole days.
The window manager config is specifically for logging into THAT window manager, not all window managers. So that's a difference. Other than that, it could accomplish the same thing. I tend to just use my window manager configs for all autostart stuff because I'm almost always have some programs that I will only want to launch for that window manager anyway, like a certain panel or systray or helper apps etc. So if I'm going to have to have an autostart section to the window manager config anyway, I might as well put everything there.
Thanks for this tutorial! I've been wondering about how to modify sounds in KDE (the warning dialog, for example), but good to know startup sounds are possible in any DE. Since I am an amateur composer, I can whip up my own little tune too. I mean, any MP3 goes, technically. 😛
@@samuelitooooo try settings/adjustments/messages and select in sources 'Plasma Workspace'. In a pull-down list you will have some specific actions that you can customize reactions for, including login.
still, startup sound launches automatically on Mint Cinnamon, if you use other DEs, you need to do it manually. for instance, i did it with paplay command and it works just fine
This can be done in kde if you’re wondering. Go to System settings > notifications > applications > Plasma workspace > change notifications (I forgot what this button is) and you can add / disable any system sounds
5:05 this happens very often on linux systems. You copy something and close the window, and then you have to reopen in because it doesn't remember. DT, could you make a video on what's the best way to fix this? It's a really common issue
@@tazz7390 I agree, I use clipmenu which is very cool. It's a clipboard manager that uses dmenu/the terminal and is simple (it's POSIX shell) and customizable
We most definetely underappreciate how those things matter. Certainly skilled marketters and copyrighters know better not to neglect little sounds and short melodies, they how they influence our psychology. That's why they use them in every commercial you can think of. Chimes, jingles and melodic triggering sounds are most often associated for us with emotions, and feelings, we should use them to our advantage psychologically.
Knoppix live cd, very cool start up and shut-down sound hearing the female voice saying "Initializing startup sequence, and Initializing shut-down sequence"
I believe a more universal option would be to make a script in somewhere like /etc/profile.d with a line that looks like aplay -f CD path/to/startup.wav This would play every time you’d get into a graphical session(I think, I only tested on one window manager and that’s it)
@@DistroTube I also wrote a way too long comment about how you could use 'aplay', part of alsa-utils package on debian based distros. For stuff like just playing background sound effects lighter is always better :)
I've been trying to restore the pc speaker on my computer, but I haven't had much luck yet. The people managing my linux distributions have some kind of weird obsessive grudge against the speaker.
Yeah. Using a simple standard audio player should be preferred over a video player. paplay is part of libpulse and probably installed already. I don't use mpv and no other package pulls it as dependency.
Hello DT. Thank you for the video. Is there a software that you may suggest to do this? I am very new here, and it would be a a hassle for me to write all those commands. Thank you very much.
Here is a cool idea: set your window manager to play whooshing, and swooshing sounds as you close/open windows and switch workspaces... here is another idea: maybe this way you could edit videos on the fly by running obs and using highly customized window manager....
That's cool, but on most Linux systems you could just use 'aplay' (part of alsa-utils package on debian based distributions, most likely to be readily installed on most distros). On the off chance you're Linux is set to use OSS4 instead of ALSA that might not work - unless you have ALSA emulation configured (I haven't touched OSS4 myself, but I recall reading it can do that - my only experience of OSS was the previous version, before ALSA became the default sound architecture of Linux; thank god for that, but from what I've heard the OSS4 can easily take up on ALSA; and depending on the sound card(s) and use case even beat it). Of course most Linux systems today default to using PulseAudio, but that's just a sound server that sits between the applications and ALSA (or OSS4) - if you feel the need to, I'm sure there's a CLI audio player like 'aplay' for PulseAudio as well. My point is just that if all you need is to play a sound in the background, you shouldn't need a whole video player to do it when there are tools made just for that. They don't have user interface, you just tell them the file to play and they will play it and exit - it won't make much difference on modern machines, but still... anything more is loading huge amount of unnecessary bloat every time a sound effect is played. Just my most humblest take on this ;)
Hey DT my left audio driver volume drops below a value that it can produce sound at random on Manjaro, Specifically 33%. Should I go to KDE or Manjaro for a fix? It is guaranteed to happen.
although it is true that start up sound does not serve your average Joe any purpose, to someone like me who is blind, it actually does serve a very useful purpose, it can tell me if I logged in successfully, because if I didn’t, I would like to know.
That reminds me of reading about some blind guy in the late 90's who had installed Linux by himself - what a task that must have been, and installing it took "a bit" more skill and patience to get through. On top of that he had to do a lot of the install completely blindly (obviously he had studied how to do it, probably even a reference book written in braille - just my guess though), all up to a point until he had managed to get a screen reader installed and could actually hear the output on the screen. Pretty sure he used a lot of echoing the "bell character" when a command exited with an error code ;) It's one of those stories that baffle me and put me in awe of how much a human can achieve when motivated enough.
@@robsku1 it certainly can take more skill and patients, not as much, probabis back, then, but still more than normal, especially, depending on the distro, and several other things, like whether what your installing has a built-in screen, reader or not.
I miss the other event sounds like "open, close, minimize, maximize, restore, etc..." when dealing with DE windows. Is it possible to have these in KDE or XFCE?
The original purpose of the start up sound was to let you know the comppuer had finished booting. Old computers took so long people often walked away after pressing the button.
In the Good Old Days (tm), I routinely relied on that startup sound to confirm that Windows XP (RIP) had finished its slow chug to the top of the hill and was ready to roll for the day. Even though bootup is incredibly fast, I still miss the charm of the startup sound.
i was just writing in a comment "back in the day startup sounds served as an audio Que that your computer has booted" and then i saw this :)
did derek not say this in the video
@@linuxstreamer8910 0:38 he says startup sounds serve no purpose.
@@piked86 then i miss remembered it
Finally, after all these years, I can boot my Arch install to the sound of the PS1 startup.
Better yet, imagine autostarting mpv in fullscreen to the actual PS1 startup video! Thanks Derek you made my day :D
I am not a Sony fanboy but the PS1 has the best startup sound ever.
@@fellipemelo9287 u dont have to be a fanboy to enjoy stuff
His name is Derek??
@@izzy-kv9ji Derek Taylor, also know as DT.
@@fellipemelo9287 while it isn't my favorite startup sound but it hits so hard
So now I can blast the XP Startup sound just like in the old days.
A good speaker volume checker at night
I just did right now
Old Network/System Admin here.... To be honest.... Event Sounds are/were important to me. Being in a busy computer environment, it was nice to hear a notice when a task error-ed or completed. Especially if your attention was focused on something else. Unless I specifically program the event sound myself via script, you pretty much barely get standard event sounds in Linux. Windows still much better at this to this day. I wish someone would come up with a standard event sounds system for Linux. I've been looking for decades. Sound events are evidently a non-issue with Linux users. The Cinnamon Desktop has come the closest with a system to define sound events via GUI. Except with Cinnamon you can't define new events. Like emptying the trash can.
The Endian Firewalls used a startup sound to let you had internet connective upon boot up or when a connection was rrestablished.
The only sound event most admins get is the sound of their phone ringing in the middle of the night 😂
I'm pretty sure KDE allows you to define sounds for literally any event.
@@jazzz4988 Thanks for the reply. But.... I'm not much of a KDE fan. KDE is an "Extreme Overkill" of a desktop for my needs.
the borialis sound theme from trisquel and mx has a decent startup sound thats kinda nice
I once had Bugs Bunny saying, "What's up,doc?" on startup and Porky Pig's "That's all, folks" on shutdown.
Yes!
Some may see system noises as annoying, but I like my system to have some personality :D
After your comment I feel a bit sorry for my system, because I usually hardly discriminate it and do not allow any sounds or popups as I use dwm btw.
a cool startup sound (and entire sound scheme) I don't think many people know about are the windows longhorn sounds. I believe they were supposed to be the Vista sounds before they got changed to what was in the final product. they sound really cool and unique and I actually use them in my KDE desktop
windows longhorn?yep ,i use it's startup sound too !
they're fanmade i believe. but i like using the startup one for my login sound
These sounds actually came from the Samsung theme for Windows XP, but they’re still pretty great nonetheless!
I didnt learn as much about computers in school as I did watching your yt channel
Cinnamon still has it and I love it. My Windows friend said: "Oh, a start up Sound. I wish Windows still had one."
He uses Linux now, but also for other reasons.
Trust me, in 30 minutes, 80% of the comments will be about how the first thing they do is to disable the start sound
Pin tbis comment, reminds me too much of Win 10
Way to spoil our fun. 😡
Irony
LOVE it. Just makes Ubuntu/Mint/Q4OS etc feel that little bit more complete 💪🙏
The old Ubuntu startup sound was cool
bum badumpum bum bum badum bam bam bam bam
Thank you for doing this. I always wanted a startup sound for my OS.
The very last thing I ever thought about adding to my setup.
Next: "You've got mail, master!"-sound whenever I receive a new mail.
Oh thanks, I was actually thinking if it is possible. I loved that feature on Win XP :D
Thanks for the video Derek, helpful as always.
I've been using the same startup sound for decades (since Windows 95, and now on Linux Mint). It's Darth Vader from when he communicates with the emperor via hologram in The Empire Strikes Back: "What is thy bidding, my master?" :)
I remember having these audio themes on Windows 3.11 and 95. The times we've spent on stuff like that as kids. Ha.
I didn't even realize this was a feature I wanted on my Linux machine, until now! Thanks for this! I miss start up sounds :)
Very great! Actually I did this exactly the same way. I also added some sound to the kill1 and shiftTo functions.
I like it (for now), but everyone else gets annoyed by it. 😁
Sweet video DT! I'm going to add a old school dial up modem as my startup sound
👍
I use --no-video on mpv all the time to stream my playlist from youtube without the need to open any application or windows because I have it bound to a keyboard shortcut :D so useful.
Do you have any way to do that with audio streams? I have a few live radio stream feed, but I could never make it work that way using mpv. I can give you an audio url to try yourself if you want.
Older PCs used to have BIOS beeps during the POST sequence to help troubleshoot issues or know all was good. Annoying at 2 A.M. when everyone else was sleeping. AOL played an announcement when you logged in and had mail. Now that sound I miss - it became iconic.
They still have, I remember fixing a laptop two years ago, I had to search manufacturers documentation of boot up error beeps (like x number of short followed by y long beeps means that the flux capacitor is missing ;) ) and found that it was an issue with the RAM sticks - replaced the other one and it worked.
They just tend to not make any beeps when everything is OK, which used to be the case in the good ole days.
Nice video DT.. Is there any difference between using the .profile file instead of the window manager config file for the startup apps?
The window manager config is specifically for logging into THAT window manager, not all window managers. So that's a difference. Other than that, it could accomplish the same thing. I tend to just use my window manager configs for all autostart stuff because I'm almost always have some programs that I will only want to launch for that window manager anyway, like a certain panel or systray or helper apps etc. So if I'm going to have to have an autostart section to the window manager config anyway, I might as well put everything there.
Thanks for this tutorial! I've been wondering about how to modify sounds in KDE (the warning dialog, for example), but good to know startup sounds are possible in any DE.
Since I am an amateur composer, I can whip up my own little tune too. I mean, any MP3 goes, technically. 😛
KDE has settings in configuration for changing sound effects for everything including startup.
@@wikingagresor I've had trouble finding these tbh
@@samuelitooooo try settings/adjustments/messages and select in sources 'Plasma Workspace'. In a pull-down list you will have some specific actions that you can customize reactions for, including login.
Nice headphones :D and awesome vid as always!
A good one can easily become emotional a few years in, didn't realize how much i missed it
Hey DT what headset are you using?
I think I'm going to add the Playstation 2 startup sound to my machine
Genius
Why stop there? Use the THX sound!
I'll use Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei. It should finish playing as I finish my coffee.
Linux Mint has an interesting startup sound by default and other system overall sounds too, and of course, you can change it.
still, startup sound launches automatically on Mint Cinnamon, if you use other DEs, you need to do it manually.
for instance, i did it with paplay command and it works just fine
I had the exact same idea for my QTile config. I just didn't know where to get some nice sounds.
Anything for the aesthetic 🖤
Now we just need a startup custom logo 🤞🏿
I'm doing this with the Mandriva 2006 KDE Startup sound. Such a great bootup sound
This can be done in kde if you’re wondering. Go to System settings > notifications > applications > Plasma workspace > change notifications (I forgot what this button is) and you can add / disable any system sounds
5:05 this happens very often on linux systems. You copy something and close the window, and then you have to reopen in because it doesn't remember. DT, could you make a video on what's the best way to fix this? It's a really common issue
You need a clipboard manager
@@matthewmccarthy3787 I was afraid you'd say that..
@@tazz7390 why?
@@matthewmccarthy3787 Idk, I always avoided those, to past me it seemed like just another thing to manage, I wanted to keep it simple
@@tazz7390 I agree, I use clipmenu which is very cool. It's a clipboard manager that uses dmenu/the terminal and is simple (it's POSIX shell) and customizable
We most definetely underappreciate how those things matter. Certainly skilled marketters and copyrighters know better not to neglect little sounds and short melodies, they how they influence our psychology. That's why they use them in every commercial you can think of. Chimes, jingles and melodic triggering sounds are most often associated for us with emotions, and feelings, we should use them to our advantage psychologically.
Knoppix live cd, very cool start up and shut-down sound hearing the female voice saying "Initializing startup sequence, and Initializing shut-down sequence"
Nice short tip!
2 days ago, I configured my laptop to play the clip from Apollo 13, "Houston, we have a problem" when my laptop battery is low
I like the old Ubuntu login and startup sounds. The one on OpenMandriva is good too.
that thumbnail is on fire!! 🔥
I believe a more universal option would be to make a script in somewhere like /etc/profile.d with a line that looks like aplay -f CD path/to/startup.wav
This would play every time you’d get into a graphical session(I think, I only tested on one window manager and that’s it)
What about if you use DM?
@Tom Williams If you use SDDM, I would suggest to edit your theme's Main.qml and using qtMultimedia to play the sound. Works very well on mine.
@Tom Williams th-cam.com/video/M-p7cHx4OM0/w-d-xo.html You could check this theme repo, for setting up the audio.
"play" is even more often always installed. part of sox package and very often installed on linux systems.
Good tip! In past videos, I also have used ffplay (ffmpeg) which should be available on most systems.
@@DistroTube I also wrote a way too long comment about how you could use 'aplay', part of alsa-utils package on debian based distros. For stuff like just playing background sound effects lighter is always better :)
This is cool. I've been wanting to build the startup graphics/ sounds from Hackers, this is a good start.
I honestly miss the Linux Mint Cinnamon start up sound, now I'm on Kubuntu so I guess I'll put the old Kubuntu sound
Can't wait to do this myself one day.
thank you DT for the tutorial.
Did somewhat the same thing, but with ffmpeg (or ffplay rather).
im definitely adding the windows XP sound to my install XD
I use Mother's start-up sound from Alien .Thnx DT
Thank you DT.
Oddly I just added a startup and shutdown sound to my Debian desktop last night.
linux mint still has them. If only the default sounds didn't give me a panic attack every time they played.
mx and enlightenment as well
I click and bam relevant content starts. #NoBs. Keep it up
How do I make mine play a constant air-raid siren on loop whilst I'm trying to work.
mpv has a '--loop-file' flag. ;)
I used the Windows 95 startup sound, which has a really nice vibe
I really missed those sound!!
This is really nice touch.
This is such an Arch problem I can't even.
You can do it with aplay in the startup script
I've been trying to restore the pc speaker on my computer, but I haven't had much luck yet. The people managing my linux distributions have some kind of weird obsessive grudge against the speaker.
It would be fun to have the XP startup sound on my fedora desktop. Like your choice of sound as well!
I love your idea of very simple. I was hoping it really was very simple, but alas.
It is simple, download some audio file, and add a line to your WM/DE startup to play MPV no audio on that audio file.
For system sounds, I always use `paplay`
Yeah. Using a simple standard audio player should be preferred over a video player. paplay is part of libpulse and probably installed already. I don't use mpv and no other package pulls it as dependency.
Hello DT. Thank you for the video. Is there a software that you may suggest to do this? I am very new here, and it would be a a hassle for me to write all those commands. Thank you very much.
if you use a full-featured DE, it probably has an autostart GUI app, you might do it there as well
Great work! Thank you
Ok, someone needs to make a program that cycles through classic startup sounds.
Ahhh, now I want to find the old Ubuntu startup sound
If you have a lot of script with mpv, like I do. Add '--no-config' parameter to avoid loading all configuration.
Dreamcast boot sound here I come.
Here is a cool idea: set your window manager to play whooshing, and swooshing sounds as you close/open windows and switch workspaces...
here is another idea: maybe this way you could edit videos on the fly by running obs and using highly customized window manager....
Like these simple Linux things!
Already added the Windows 2000 startup :]
i used to have the first few seconds of the terminator theme going "dun dun dun dun dun.... DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN!"
That's cool, but on most Linux systems you could just use 'aplay' (part of alsa-utils package on debian based distributions, most likely to be readily installed on most distros). On the off chance you're Linux is set to use OSS4 instead of ALSA that might not work - unless you have ALSA emulation configured (I haven't touched OSS4 myself, but I recall reading it can do that - my only experience of OSS was the previous version, before ALSA became the default sound architecture of Linux; thank god for that, but from what I've heard the OSS4 can easily take up on ALSA; and depending on the sound card(s) and use case even beat it).
Of course most Linux systems today default to using PulseAudio, but that's just a sound server that sits between the applications and ALSA (or OSS4) - if you feel the need to, I'm sure there's a CLI audio player like 'aplay' for PulseAudio as well.
My point is just that if all you need is to play a sound in the background, you shouldn't need a whole video player to do it when there are tools made just for that. They don't have user interface, you just tell them the file to play and they will play it and exit - it won't make much difference on modern machines, but still... anything more is loading huge amount of unnecessary bloat every time a sound effect is played.
Just my most humblest take on this ;)
explained really well
🙂
With all due respect to DT, NO THANKS! One of the first things I would do with a clean installation of Windows, was to disable that foolishness!
A sound would let me know that the system didn't hang after bootup and the desktop is available.
Hey DT my left audio driver volume drops below a value that it can produce sound at random on Manjaro, Specifically 33%. Should I go to KDE or Manjaro for a fix? It is guaranteed to happen.
Solus has a startup sound included out of the box.
I can finally have bruh sound effect #2 as my startup sound
When you close an app after copying something in linux the clipboard forgets it. On Windows it doesn't for some reason.
i am using ubuntu currently and want to ask a question why can't i switch between tasks using 3 finger trackpad gesture like windows
although it is true that start up sound does not serve your average Joe any purpose, to someone like me who is blind, it actually does serve a very useful purpose, it can tell me if I logged in successfully, because if I didn’t, I would like to know.
That reminds me of reading about some blind guy in the late 90's who had installed Linux by himself - what a task that must have been, and installing it took "a bit" more skill and patience to get through. On top of that he had to do a lot of the install completely blindly (obviously he had studied how to do it, probably even a reference book written in braille - just my guess though), all up to a point until he had managed to get a screen reader installed and could actually hear the output on the screen.
Pretty sure he used a lot of echoing the "bell character" when a command exited with an error code ;)
It's one of those stories that baffle me and put me in awe of how much a human can achieve when motivated enough.
@@robsku1 it certainly can take more skill and patients, not as much, probabis back, then, but still more than normal, especially, depending on the distro, and several other things, like whether what your installing has a built-in screen, reader or not.
Question: is it possible to spawn multiple sounds after one another
>you can do this in any linux distro and any DE
>shows xmonad
thanks, it's easy and works perfect, i put it in my conky startup script
but what about sound volume control?
So what about if I wanted to put a custom sound for the alert sound in Ubuntu.?
Playing it with mpv is fine but aplay or ffplay would suffice too.
is this applicable in kde plasma? what should I look for? i think don't have the xmonad.
What is the name of login manager that Dt is using ?
I will unironically add windows xp sounds
Missing the part where it has to play through all audio outputs, and before you login.
A very important video. No kidding...
Hmm.. why don't you set it up on the DM?
I miss the other event sounds like "open, close, minimize, maximize, restore, etc..." when dealing with DE windows. Is it possible to have these in KDE or XFCE?
Definitely with KDE, but I don't know any way to do it with XFCE, and I've used it a lot.
@@robsku1 Can you point some tutorial for KDE so I can get these sound events? TIA
Mac still has a startup sound win 11 maybe too but im not sure
Why to use a video player to reproduce an mp3 file?
Sweet headphones DT! What are those, ATH-ad700x? Or did you splurge on one of the nicer ones of the series?
Those are the 1000x headphones. And yes...they are very nice!
@@DistroTube Very snazzy!
oh btw windows 11 actually has a startup sound, its actually fairly decent but its no windows xp