I installed the Slitaz rolling release. Wouldn't be the first time this has been said - sound doesn't work. Running alsaplayer from the Applications menu gives the text graphic, F6 (then 1 instead of 0) and I can adjust Master/
Headphone/Speaker, but still no sound. Running alsaplayer from a terminal gives this message:

ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1022snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
snd_pcm_open: No such file or directory (default)
Failed to initialize plugin!
Failed to register plugin: /usr/lib/alsaplayer/output/libalsa_out.so
Failed to load output plugin "alsa". Trying defaults.
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1022snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
snd_pcm_open: No such file or directory (default)
Failed to initialize plugin!
/usr/lib/alsaplayer/output/libalsa_out.so failed to load
error opening /dev/dsp
Failed to initialize plugin!
/usr/lib/alsaplayer/output/liboss_out.so failed to load
NOTE: THIS IS THE NULL PLUGIN. YOU WILL NOT HEAR SOUND!!

(process:32474): Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

(process:32474): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
CBSetcurrent: 1

(alsaplayer:32474): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_list_store_set_valist: assertion 'VALID_ITER (iter, list_store)' failed

Any takers?

What is the sound chip hardware you are talking about here?

Is alsa-lib and alsa-utils installed?

Also make sure

has everything unmuted and sliders up.

Thanks for responding. Unfortunately I found a serious bug that corrupted my wifi. So I went back to debian, and unlike the previous two times I tried it, this one actually works fine so far. I tried the 64-bit and the 32-bit versions, and I guess XFCE is as buggy as I've heard. This time I installed the 64-bit with the LXDE and I really think it's a huge improvement. Sound is still a little sluggish in some programs, but youtube works fine.

I'm not really sure what my sound card is - I've seen messages while booting various OSes and live cds about using a 'generic solution' or something like that. When I ran alsamixer in previous HD settings, F6 would show the driver as 'snd_hda_intel'. Well, this is an Hewlett-Packard laptop that had Win8 pre- installed. I'd rather run a buggy Linux than a fresh Windoze any day - but with Slitaz I found my limit.