Hello. I'm using Debian Sarge 3.1, with kernel 2.4.27-speakup. I have Creative SoundBlaster Live. Alsa-conf has never been able to find my soundcard, but I did have sound working with most of the applications. Now, however, after a dist-upgrade, it is all gone, and I cannot figure out how to get it back.

"modinfo soundcore" reads: /lib/modules/2.4.27-speakup/kernel/drivers/sound/soundcore.o description: Core sound module

"modinfo emu10k1" reads: /lib/modules/2.4.27-speakup/kernel/drivers/sound/emu10k1/emu10k1.o description: Creative EMU10K1 PCI Audio Driver v0.20

modprobe emu10k1 goes without a hitch. However, cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp, I get bash: /dev/dsp: No such device. I checked this by ls /dev/dsp, which reports /dev/dsp. So, I'm not sure what to think.

I've tried sndconfig, alsaconf, and modconf, and nothing works. The audio group has read write permissions on /dev/dsp0

How can I get sound?

Well, I figured it out. I reinstalled the package "alsa-modules-2.4.27-1-386". It gave me the following message: Setting up alsa-modules-2.4.27-1-386 (1.0.6a+5) ...
depmod: Can't read /boot/System.map-2.4.27-1-386. The file's name is "System.map-2.4.27-speakup"; so, I created a link to this file, naming the link "System.map-2.4.27-1-386". I then was able to successfully install alsa-modules-2.4.27-1-386. Then, I copied all these modules to the /lib/modules/2.4.27-speakup/kernel/drivers/sound/alsa directory, running depmod, and modprobe. I got some weird messages, but something seemed to be working. Then, I ran alsaconf, and, miraculously, it found and configured the soundcard. So, I'm very happy about this.

Of course, the question now is why isn't there a Debian package of alsa-modules for their default "speakup" kernel?