What you will need: startup sound in ogg format.
Step 1:
Go to System -> Preferences -> Starup Applications
Look for “GNOME Login Sound” in the list. If you don’t want to hear anything at startup, uncheck this box.
If you want to change the sound, press Edit button. Then in the command field you’ll see
/usr/bin/canberra-gtk-play –id=”desktop-login” –description=”GNOME Login”
Change “desktop-login” to the name of the sound file you want, without file extension.
Click Save and close the startup dialog.
Step 2:
Now you have to copy this new sound (.ogg file) to
/usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/
You need root permission to copy the file into this directory which can be done by running nautilus as root.
$sudo nautilus
Then browse to that folder and paste the file there.
Step 3:
Log out and login to listen to the new startup sound.
Tito The Man 
Thanks! I could finally mute the login sound! 🙂
By: claudio on November 9, 2009
at 11:50 pm
You’re welcome. 🙂
By: Tito on November 10, 2009
at 8:20 pm
At last a solution for changing the login. Any ideas for logout and all the other sounds for events that were so easy to do in older versions under sounds?
tgpfx
By: Terry Anderson on November 12, 2009
at 11:47 am
I can’t get permission to copy a file into that directory. It says I’m not the owner when I try to change permissions
By: Keith on November 18, 2009
at 8:47 pm
You need root permission to do this.
Run Nautilus as root by typing
$sudo nautilus
in the terminal and browse to that folder.
I hope that works :).
By: Tito on November 18, 2009
at 9:26 pm
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/graphicalsudo
$gksudo nautilus
…is safer.
By: C on April 15, 2011
at 10:30 pm
You are THE MAN !
Thanks a lot sir
By: test on December 3, 2009
at 7:19 am
nice information.. thx..
By: pramonotunggul on December 15, 2009
at 6:43 am
The gnome developers really treat users as STUPID, and like Windoze users jail lovers.
They decided to remove Users Freedom to change System sounds, GDM settings, they always try to keep it SIMPLE STUPID DESKTOP FOR STUPID PEOPLE. they think users are not smart enough to use GNU.
KDE gives you more control, GNOME hide more control for you.
By: Mohamed Ameur on December 16, 2009
at 8:41 am
I hate to break it to ya, its ubuntu not gnome that disables the root account by default. Even Kubuntu which uses KDE has the root disabled
By: Masaki on February 21, 2010
at 8:19 am
I’m recieving the below message when I try the $sudo nautilus command, and it doesn’t allow me to change the contents of the …. /ubuntu/stereo/ folder. Any ideas?
Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()’ failed
By: Safak on December 18, 2009
at 5:14 am
I followed your directions but am unable to get the sound to play. I tried reverting back to the original settings but that also does not work. Any suggestions?
By: Al on December 24, 2009
at 10:37 pm
Thanks, works great!
By: Matt on January 15, 2010
at 7:41 am
also if you put this in the terminal
“sudo passwd root”
you can set the password and thereby enable the root account and you canthen login as root from the main screen and not have to worry with sudoing, if you screw something up though thats a whole other matter
By: Masaki on February 21, 2010
at 8:25 am
Thanks, now I can put the StarCraft sound like in 9.04!
By: Jonathan on March 14, 2010
at 12:28 pm
Nice try man, you helped me to learn how to change my startup sound, but, the way you teach is not the best choice. I tried your way, and now my user login is without any sound, and thats because you say:
Change “desktop-login” to the name of the sound file you want, without file extension.
Click Save and close the startup dialog.
Just after following this, and seeing that my system was without any sound, that i tried to do the opposite with root, and guess what? it worked…So, instead of change “desktop-login” to the name of the sound file you want, just change the name of the file sound that you want to “desktop-login” and everything will be fine!
By: Sheldon on May 21, 2010
at 3:02 pm
Same happened to me in ubuntu 10.10! How am I supposed to fix it?
By: MacJARedd on April 27, 2011
at 11:15 pm
thanks so much … finally after much searching found your helpful post
By: Jim on June 29, 2010
at 7:36 am
Great work dude! I now have the mac sound…
Can you post how to show the HD on the desktop (Hard Drive) like in the mac.
By: nelson on July 4, 2010
at 12:11 am
[…] Of course, Google helped me with this task, and it brought me to this post. […]
By: Changing Ubuntu’s Login Sound - Rants. Inspirations. Xiance? on August 16, 2010
at 4:56 pm
You might change your instructions to gksu nautilus, since using sudo for graphical applications can really mess things up.
If you search around a bit, you’ll find several good articles relating to gksu vs. sudo.
Other than this, thanks for the how-to…
By: brad on September 24, 2010
at 4:11 pm
You may put the startup sound in usr/share/sounds and then maybe change “desktop-loging” if necessary see at: http://www.wubijacq.com/freedesktop/
By: wubijacq on December 3, 2010
at 3:12 pm
Woohoo! Thanks Tito, my PC now sounds like a car starting and revving it’s engine!!! Hilarious! 😀
I acquired my sound files from the lovely people at audiomicro.com . They have a big list of free of charge sound effects. Much thanks to them as well.
By: cheapo on January 7, 2011
at 4:54 pm
with your instructions i find the place that the sounds are <>
then i chose my custom starup and shutdown ogg sounds
i rename them with the exact name as the original ubuntu .oog file
overwriten them and vouala !!
As simple as it gets
By: baggelis on May 24, 2011
at 3:09 pm
… highly useful, although i ended up having to convert my mp3 file :-<<
By: roman or biter on June 14, 2011
at 1:13 pm
It is still dumb that Linux does not have sound themes. foolishness like this is why Windows is still whipping our ass. {sighs}
By: Er1c S on October 14, 2011
at 3:28 am
@Eric. Not an attempt to ignite a flame war, but I think that users that have a deep seated need for easily obtainable shiny pictures and jangly noises, are indeed well suited to Windows 🙂
By: roman or biter on October 14, 2011
at 6:15 am
Ordinary people you mean? 😉
By: Peter Peters on October 15, 2011
at 7:12 pm
I guess lol
By: roman or biter on October 15, 2011
at 10:05 pm