[ale] Almost too much of a _Good_Thing_

[Mills, John M.]

ALErs -

I'm a very happy new SuSE Pro-9.3 user on my house-brand Fry's laptop:

1. Clean resizing of my NTFS with 'ntfsresize' off SystemRescueCD w/ no
   significant losses (I did have to rebuild one Win dialin entry - pretty
cheap!)
2. Clean re partitioning and installation from downloaded CDs
3. WORKS THE AC'97 wimpModem PERFECTLY! (my primary pre-install question)
4. OpenOffice and my usual apps either were installed or were easy to add
5. Burns CD's, etc 'just fine'
6. Plays audio material 'just fine'
7. Power management seems OK, though I'm not very critical
8. Decent looking (I find)

Negatives about the laptop are:

1. Motherboard wimpModem (failed and took 4 wks. for warranty repair, though
   Fry's handled all shipping and coordination)
2. Screen not really sharp nor high contrast
3. Battery life a bit short - under two hours

Since it is commonly featured in their ads at $500-$550, _NO_REBATE_, I'm
pretty satisfied overall.

Still finding my way around desktop and desk toys, but basically quite
happy. My questions at this point seem to be very minor SuSE/KDE
configuration issues.

I do have one minor quibble:

The 'sound splash' when I login is really nasty! Too much drive, ugly sound
to begin with, my wife even complains from the other room! It doesn't seem
to respond to the audio control panel - just blasts out scratchily.

QUESTION:
How can I moderate, substitute, or strangle the audio snippet played at user
login?

TIA.

 - Mills