I recently installed Debian testing on a Dell Precision M70. The problem I have is: in order to get sound to work with xmms or grip, I need to rerun alsaconf after each boot. The error message from xmms prior to running alsaconf is: Please check no other program is blocking the sound card.

Thank you in advance for any help.

lspci -vv:

0000:00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Generic])
Subsystem: Conexant: Unknown device 5423
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 10
Region 0: I/O ports at ee00 [size=256]
Region 1: I/O ports at ec80 [size=128]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

lsmod:
Module Size Used by
nvidia 4081552 14
rtl 416388 0
usblp 11520 0
usbhid 26116 0
snd_intel8x0 28480 2
snd_ac97_codec 82056 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm_oss 55968 1
snd_mixer_oss 18560 2 snd_pcm_oss
ata_piix 7556 0
snd_pcm 87560 3 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
uhci_hcd 31500 0
ehci_hcd 42120 0
snd_timer 22404 1 snd_pcm
snd 47076 6 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
usbcore 118268 5 usblp,usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
libata 42116 1 ata_piix
snd_page_alloc 9096 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm

Have a look at Esound(ESD) a sound daemon that allows multiple sound clients running if alsa can't. Good luck.

Thank you for the suggestion. Setting up XMMS to use eSound as the output plugin (instead of Alsa) fixed the problem.