when i log on to gnome, everytime there are about 10 items on my desktop called /dev/dsp/usb/scanner0 - /dev/dsp/usb/scanner10. i have to delete them everytime i log on, and i can delete them as any user, so root doesn't delete them forever. when i was beginning linux (i am still beginning) i was having a hard time getting my audio card to work, so someone here told me to create a dev/dsp. this resulted in my creating thousands of folders and files. some of which i am sure where /dev/dsp/usb/scanner. i think it is less than glamorous to log onto my computer and find all these stupid icons on my desktop. any ideas?

i think give us the "ls -l" output if you want of /dev/dsp
is it a directory or just a link to a directory
a directory has a "d" as the first letter of the "ls -l" output
a link has a "l"
if /dev/dsp is really a directory ??????
does your sound work ???????
if /dev/dsp is really a directory then (don't do this if it's a link)
can't he/she just delete it ?? anyone else weigh in on that ??
rm -R /dev/dsp (wipe out the whole strange thing)
if you got
/dev/dsp0
just
ln -s /dev/dsp0 /dev/dsp
that should do it back to what it aught to be

might want to look at a proper /dev directory for your distribution before doing what i said
it's possible that your /dev/dsp link should point to /dev/audio/dsp0 or something
but even at that you can change that easy if you first set it wrong ??????

if this odd /dev/dsp is a link tell us what it is pointing to
if it's a link you can still delete it
rm /dev/dsp
but don't use the -R switch -- cause you might wipe out something important

it is a directory with these catagories:
ataraid/ cpu/ ida/ logicalco/ raw/ snd/ video/
cciss/ dri/ inet/ modems/ rd/ touchscreen/ watchdogs/
compaq/ i2o/ input/ net/ scanners/ usb/

my sound does work because whatever i did just bypassed this new dsp directory