Or at least so it seems. I have a gentoo system that has been working well since I installed it, but when I installed KDE, my sound started going funny. I don't know how to describe it other than clicks, crinkling, or static; it's something like that. It doesn't really represent anything (like it's using the wrong sample rate or byte order or something), and it only happens when something tries to make sound.

% cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.5 (root@speedy) (gcc version 3.3.2 20031218 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r5, propolice-3.3-7)) #2 Sat May 8 22:10:01 UTC 2004

% lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_pcm_oss 48356 -
snd_mixer_oss 17280 -
snd_pcm 84196 -
snd_timer 21508 -
snd_ac97_codec 60100 -
snd_page_alloc 8644 -
snd_mpu401_uart 5824 -
snd_rawmidi 20000 -
snd_seq_device 6440 -
nvidia 1700972 -

% cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
*snip*
Bus 0, device 17, function 5:
Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 80).
IRQ 5.
I/O at 0xe000 [0xe0ff].
*snip*

% dmesg
*snip*
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.4rc2 (Tue Mar 30 08:19:30 2004 UTC).
via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample rate.
Please try dxs_support=1 or dxs_support=4 option
and report if it works on your machine.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:11.5 to 64
ALSA device list:
#0: VIA 8235 at 0xe000, irq 5
*snip*
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
unable to register timer device (-16)
kobject_register failed for VIA 82xx Audio (-17)
Call Trace:
[<c01f0bae>] kobject_register+0x57/0x59
[<c0244da4>] bus_add_driver+0x4a/0xb1
[<c02451f9>] driver_register+0x2f/0x33
[<c01fa374>] pci_register_driver+0x5c/0x84
[<d0a83013>] alsa_card_via82xx_init+0x13/0x3b [snd_via82xx]
[<c012f7b5>] sys_init_module+0x147/0x221
[<c010727f>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb

VIA 82xx soundcard not found or device busy
*snip*
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
unable to register OSS mixer device 0:0
unable to register OSS PCM device 0:0
unable to register OSS PCM device 0:1
Losing too many ticks!
TSC cannot be used as a timesource. <4>Possible reasons for this are:
You're running with Speedstep,
You don't have DMA enabled for your hard disk (see hdparm),
Incorrect TSC synchronization on an SMP system (see dmesg).
Falling back to a sane timesource now.
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
Debug: sleeping function called from invalid context at mm/slab.c:1931
in_atomic():1, irqs_disabled():0
Call Trace:
[<c0118106>] __might_sleep+0xab/0xc9
[<c013a527>] kmem_cache_alloc+0x6e/0x70
[<c014883c>] __get_vm_area+0x24/0xf3
[<c0115cca>] recalc_task_prio+0x90/0x1aa
[<c014893d>] get_vm_area+0x32/0x36
[<c01155cc>] __ioremap+0xb7/0x104
[<c0136f93>] buffered_rmqueue+0xf0/0x1bd
[<c0115644>] ioremap_nocache+0x2b/0xad
[<d0acf444>] os_map_kernel_space+0x68/0x6c [nvidia]
[<d0ae1a37>] __nvsym00568+0x1f/0x2c [nvidia]
[<d0ae3b56>] __nvsym00775+0x6e/0xe0 [nvidia]
[<d0ae3be6>] __nvsym00781+0x1e/0x190 [nvidia]
[<d0ae566c>] rm_init_adapter+0xc/0x10 [nvidia]
[<d0acbed7>] nv_kern_open+0xf3/0x228 [nvidia]
[<d0acbde4>] nv_kern_open+0x0/0x228 [nvidia]
[<c01567c8>] chrdev_open+0xb3/0x1be
[<c014d155>] dentry_open+0x106/0x15e
[<c014d04d>] filp_open+0x62/0x64
[<c014d413>] sys_open+0x5b/0x8b
[<c010727f>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb

atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x7a on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: This is an XFree86 bug. It shouldn't access hardware directly.
atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x7a on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: This is an XFree86 bug. It shouldn't access hardware directly.
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
soundcore: Unknown symbol devfs_remove
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_dir
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_mk_cdev
snd: Unknown symbol devfs_remove

The funny thing about whining about devfs is that on startup, it also whines about devfs not being compiled into the kernel, when in fact, it is. Any help with this?

I'm sorry, I don't know what more to tell you. Please ask if you need some more info; I really need to get sound working. Thank you so much in advance.
-Greg

KDE installs a sound-server called arts which causes all sorts of probs with my audio apps.
Have you tried killing this before launching your sound app?
Eg
killall artsd & xmms.

Thank you very much for replying, but no, killing artsd does nothing. In fact, I can boot into runlevel 1 and it makes that same noise.

I don't know what to make of this : I can do something like "yes az > /dev/dsp" and I can get a faint tone out of my speaker. However, when anything else (near as I can tell) tries to make sound, it starts crackling again. Any ideas?