I am running FC3, and have a question regarding sound:

Unless I am logged in as root, I am unable to hear any sound from any applications. This can be fixed by changing permissions on /dev/snd/*, /dev/mixer, and /dev/dsp thusly:

chmod o+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer /dev/snd/*

This allows me to run alsamixer (my preferred mixer) and to hear sound from various apps. It also allows me to use gnome-volume-control to set the system volume.

However, on reboot, the permissions on /dev/dsp /dev/mixer, and /dev/snd/* have been reset to disallow read and write access to anyone but root, requiring that I go through the chmod rigamarole AGAIN. What is causing this behavior, and how can I prevent it?

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

Rob

It sounds like you may be using udev. I think there are two ways to fix it. You can edit /etc/udev/udev.permissions (it may be in a slighly different place on your distro) and change the lines that talk about the sound nodes so that they have permissions 0666

snd/*:root:audio:0666
admmidi*:root:audio:0666
adsp*:root:audio:0666
and so on.

Or you can add yourself (and any other users who need to have access to the audio nodes) to the audio group. This is probably the best (safest) way to go.

usermod -g $GROUP -G audio $USER
where $GROUP is your normal group (probably users or suchlike) and $USER is your username. Read man usermod to check I've got it right. Have to be root to run that command. There may be a fancy GUI to do those things on your distro but I wouldn't know. To find out what groups you're in before you start use the groups command.
groups $USER