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Beep From the Terminal With beep

Play a tone on the PC speaker with a chosen frequency and duration.

LinuxaudiosystemLow risk
Run beep -f 880 -l 500 to play an 880 Hz tone for 500 milliseconds.

01Command

Command
$ beep -f 880 -l 500

02What it does

beep drives the computer speaker directly, so it works even when no sound card is present. Set -f for frequency in hertz, -l for length in milliseconds and -r to repeat. It is useful as an audible alert at the end of a long build or backup.

03Risk

RiskLow risk
Requirementssudo apt install beep
!Warning: beep needs access to the speaker device and often requires root or a setuid helper; some laptops have no PC speaker at all.

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

  • spkr-beep/beep
    GitHub · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
    Evidence: Documents -f frequency, -l length and -r repetitions.
  • Debian package: beep
    Debian · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
    Evidence: Installs beep, a command-line PC-speaker tone generator.

Last verified: 2026-09-20 · Category: System & Settings

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