one more time on KDMKTONE
Bob Tracy - TDS (rct@merkin.csap.af.mil)
Wed, 13 Aug 1997 16:33:52 -0500 (CDT)
The intent of the original 2.1.49 patch for linux/drivers/char/vt.c
seems to be to modify the affected ioctl() calls to accept the frequency
of the desired tone rather than the period ( 1193180 / frequency ). An
"interesting" side-effect of this patch is that all the beep tones
generated by different apps (and by the kernel itself) now have the
"wrong" pitch. The man page for console_ioctl(4) is now wrong as well
since it claims that KIOCSOUND and KDMKTONE want the period of the
desired tone in clock cycles, but since the man page says in big bold
letters that these kernel internal features are "liable to be changed
without warning", I reckon there's no basis for complaint :-). Beyond
that, IMHO specifying the frequency of the desired tone is more
intuitive than specifying the period.
ASSuming that this change in philosophy is a keeper, then there's a
bit of cleanup work to do tracking down all the places where these
ioctl() calls are used.
--
--------Bob Tracy AFIWC/AFCERT rct@merkin.csap.af.mil--------
"If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a
year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep."
-- Will Rogers