i finally can hear sound on my laptop but it sound skips like crazy using xmms, alsaplayer and mpg321, amp doesn't work at all. what i mean by skipping is that it plays each second twice. when a song is supposed to go (da ta de da) it goes (da da ta ta de de da da), so it's not normal skippidge. i think it's probalby due to bad setup, i edited my isapnp.conf file and my /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file to work with my sound card. any idea of what could be wrong?

documentation from the linux-2.4.19 kernel source
Documentation for the ESS1868F AudioDrive PnP sound card
The ESS1868 sound card is a PnP ESS1688-compatible 16-bit sound card.
It should be automatically detected by the Linux Kernel isapnp support when you
load the sb.o module. Otherwise you should take care of:
* The ESS1868 does not allow use of a 16-bit DMA, thus DMA 0, 1, 2, and 3 may only be used.
* isapnptools version 1.14 does work with ESS1868. Earlier versions might not.
* Sound support MUST be compiled as MODULES, not statically linked into the kernel.
NOTE: this is only needed when not using the kernel isapnp support!
For configuring the sound card's I/O addresses, IRQ and DMA, here is a sample copy of the isapnp.conf directives regarding the ESS1868:

(CONFIGURE ESS1868/-1 (LD 1
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0220))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x0388))
(IO 2 (BASE 0x0330))
(DMA 0 (CHANNEL 1))
(INT 0 (IRQ 5 (MODE +E)))
(ACT Y)
))

(for a full working isapnp.conf file, remember the
(ISOLATE)
(IDENTIFY *)
at the beginning and the
(WAITFORKEY)
at the end.)

In this setup, the main card I/O is 0x0220, FM synthesizer is 0x0388, and
the MPU-401 MIDI port is located at 0x0330. IRQ is IRQ 5, DMA is channel 1.

After configuring the sound card via isapnp, to use the card you must load
the sound modules with the proper I/O information. Here is my setup:

# ESS1868F AudioDrive initialization

/sbin/modprobe sound
/sbin/insmod uart401
/sbin/insmod sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=-1
/sbin/insmod mpu401 io=0x330
/sbin/insmod opl3 io=0x388
/sbin/insmod v_midi

opl3 is the FM synthesizer
/sbin/insmod opl3 io=0x388

what wartstew told me to modify in my rc.modules file
### Sound support ###
# Sound Blaster Pro/16 support:
/sbin/modprobe sb esstype=1868 io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=3 mpu_io=0x330

to load sound i do (modprobe soundcore, modprobe sound, modprobe sb) , i dont do the /sbin/insmod thing in the documentation... should i, can someone explain it to me? is capture dma the same as dma16? my isapnp.conf file looks the same as the example in the documentation, i just copied and pasted it.
finally my soundcard specs from my bios...
I/O base address: 220h
IRQ CHANNEL: IRQ5
CAPTURE DMA CHANNEL: DMA3
FM I/O BASE ADDRESS: 388h
MPU I/O BASE ADDRESS: 330h

I had this problem on my Compaq Armada 7750MT laptop. I solved it by adding something to /etc/modules.conf. I'll see if I can dig it up.

EDIT: Here is my modules.conf:

alias sound-slot-0 sb
options sound dmabuf=1
alias synth0 opl3
options opl3 io=0x388
options sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1

I think the key here is the dmabuf=1 option.

thanks, ill try it.

didn't work

first try i put everything you had into my (previously empty) modules.conf file then i got note/error messages saying that modules.conf is newer than /lib/modules/2.4.19/modules.dep. on this try the modprobe sb failed.

second try i emptied the modules.conf file and put in that dmabuf=1 option. modprobe sb went ok, same note messages (mentioned above) but same skipping problem as well.

so close yet so far... anyone got any suggestions...anybody?

sucess!!! i got it to work without skipping
i did the insmod settings the kernel document said to do, but substituted /sbin/insmod with modprobe because of all the errors i was getting

modprobe soundcore
modprobe sound
modprobe uart401
modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=-1

one last thing, i can now only hear out of the right speaker, even when i put in head phones. how do i fix this?

(my laptop speakers suck, but sounds great with the headphones)