Ask HN: Why dont operating systems make sounds anymore | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why dont operating systems make sounds anymore

18 pointsmonkaiju25 comments

It seems like almost no operating systems make sounds anymore. I remember the old Ubuntu installers and mac/windows boot noises from when i was young, when did these go away?

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The sounds were loud and lasted several seconds. These were removed because most computing devices are now mobile. The sounds are extremely annoying and disruptive to hear from a stranger's laptop every few minutes during a meeting, a classroom lecture, wifi shop, cubicle environment, auditorium, airplane, etc... They could also be embarrassing to anyone who just revealed that they were not paying attention.

For a similar reason I used to set sound themes to 'none', and for screen sharing.

Though there was a story of one office that set everyone's sounds to classical instruments so things would sound like an orchestra tuning up.

Example of sounds that are very useful:

- device connected

- device disconnected

Sound effects used to be common in the GNOME desktop. I think they were added because of Sun's involvement in improving the usability of the desktop. There is a wealth of research that indicates that sound clues can improve usability. See f.e.: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014492999119066

But the sound effect support was never complete so some buttons and icons in Nautilus (the file manager) would make sounds when pressed but not those in the window manager. I think that is why they were dropped. Because if some buttons make a click sound when clicked but not others then the experience becomes confusing. And making all Linux desktop apps comply with the same sound effect "theme" (or whatever) would be very difficult. KDE apps would undoubtedly use different sound effects than GNOME apps and so on. It's a feature I sorely miss though.

If my operating system makes sound, I immediately look for the way to remove all sound notifications.

Same, as with every instance of emacs, phone, tablet, tv, streaming device, car screen, et al.

Let me ask the opposite question. Why did operating systems make any sounds? Is the rationale for them making sounds still valid? What information does it provide you that isn't otherwise obvious?

This is a very different question from the root parent.

I used my first computer in the early 80s so my answers can relate to a very different world/context than ours now.

First personal computer users had only experience with mechanical typewriters that made a lot of noise when typing. So 8bits computer keyboards usually have a feedback sound on each character. The sound was different in repeat mode and maybe backspace mode.

On input validation failure, systems usually made an annoying beep sound.

In the early mouse based GUI systems, the same kind of sound was used if you clicked outstide the current modal dialog box for example.

So sound was used as some kind of error signal mostly. On the mac the system beep was replaced with a duck sound (or whatever it was configurable).

Different sounds hinted the user if the message was some kind of error or an event notification. Until recently this may have an ergonomic value for some users.

PCs used plain system beep for a long time. These days the motherboards still use them as error message for things like missing RAM...

For users with low vision and older folks it can help. I like to think the skeomorphic conventions carried over into sounds too, with abrupt alert sounds and rising sound for boot and descending sound for shutdown.

Since disk drive units and modems became more silent OS developers supposed users would miss these geek-relaxing sounds and replaced them with 8-16 bit symphonies from their brand new sound cards... well, that's a good theory right?

Rationale for the startup sound for an OS may have been the considerably lengthier time from power on to login screen, which has reduced to seconds nowadays.

Because it’s annoying.

I will be the one to go against the grain and say that OS sounds are not necessarily annoying. What is annoying is OS sounds that are slow to start so that by the time you hear them, the action has already been completed and you've performed the action twice or thrice more.

A good OS sound is instant and lets you know something important or different happened.

My Mac Mini (i7 bought in 2020) running Big Sur makes a startup sound.

Also, all the system sounds were remade in Big Sur.

A fun fact: IBM OS/370 never made sounds, but it was the terminals that did! You would expect to hear a horrible screeching sound every time you press Return or a function key - that's how you would know that you got a response from the system and the screen was updated (which could take a few seconds).

Annoyance, probably. My question is, why do websites play sounds by default? Specifically, when I'm in a zoom meeting and a company-wide email goes out, I tend to hear three or more echoes of the Outlook notification sound.

"Why I killed the Windows startup sound" by Jensen Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWUBjM2LNJU

I remember windows 95 made a sound when it started. Maybe now that boots are fast there is no need to notify a user who may have focused on something else while waiting ?

Brought to you by Brian Eno!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno#The_Microsoft_Sound

> Eno shed further light on the composition of the sound on the BBC Radio 4 show The Museum of Curiosity, admitting that he created it using a Macintosh computer, stating "I wrote it on a Mac. I've never used a PC in my life; I don't like them."

Funny.

Windows used to make a sound when shutting down too...

This page has the files for the default system sounds for Win95. https://www.rjgeib.com/about-me/sounds/sounds95.html

You can see that there was a sound when the trash was emptied or when you receive a new mail.

This was really a different, simpler time. Imagine an open space where each computer make a sound each time you receive an email, even with a good spam filter...

Back then, decent sound coming out of a PC was still pretty novel; you could still buy a PC that had no sound capability other than the click/beep speaker. Why not showcase the awesome new multimedia capabilities than a nice startup sound?

Sound effects communicate information while you can't look. Looking is the primary output of computers now, so we no longer need to hear that which we can't see; Because we see everything.

In art, audio creates mood. An operating system isn't a piece of art to marvel at, it's the blank canvas upon which apps and games are painted. Those make the richest sounds to date!

I have linux mint with cinnamon, it makes sounds, if desired, for many common actions.

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