My sound is always turned off by default when I start the computer. How can I fix it?

SOLUTION: rc-update add alsasound default

Have you run alsaconf? Would you post the results of the following command:

/sbin/lsmod

Would you also post the sound card you have, or chip set if it is on the system board.

If you have a driver loaded for your sound card you will see some lines form the above conmmand that look like this:

snd_seq_dummy 2532 0
snd_seq_oss 31136 0
snd_seq_midi_event 5696 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 46960 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss 48960 0
snd_mixer_oss 16896 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_es18xx 27208 3
snd_pcm 79784 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_es18xx
snd_page_alloc 8392 1 snd_pcm
snd_opl3_lib 8672 1 snd_es18xx
snd_timer 20548 3 snd_seq,snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib
snd_hwdep 6848 1 snd_opl3_lib
snd_mpu401_uart 5664 1 snd_es18xx
snd_rawmidi 19616 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 6828 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
snd 46116 16 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_es18xx,snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib,snd_timer,snd_hwdep,sn d_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore 7008 1 snd

If they are not there, you won't have sound until you figure out what hardware, and then load the correct modules.

If you just add an argument to the command line and it will save the config. I'm not using alsa conf so I don't know the exact argument but --help should help you.

//I know you solved it, this is just another solution