How can I make the X Windows bell use the default audio device?

Question

The X window system provides the command

xset b on

to turn on the 'bell' that rings when Ctl-G is sent to an xterm, for example. Unfortunately, the default seems to be to try to play the bell on the PC speaker, which I don't have on my hardware.

How can I get X to play the bell on the default audio device, like /dev/dsp or something of that nature?

Answer 1

pulseaudio has an option to do this:

pulseaudio --daemonize  # If you aren't already running it

pactl upload-sample /usr/share/sounds/generic.wav bell-windowing-system
pactl load-module module-x11-bell sample=bell-windowing-system

This can be globally enabled in /etc/pulse/default.pa.