After a good read around, I'm still having problems:
Sound works with mp3s/etc, but not with CDs. It's a laptop and when I boot into windows it plays the CD, so I'm assuming the cable s in place.
I'm using Gnome.
I can control the volume when playing mp3s etc (xmms, xine, realplayer, etc) with kmix, but not with gnome volume controller.
Right-clicking on the gnome volume controller and selecting Open Volume Control gives the following error: Sorry, no mixer elements and/or devices found.
The volume control stays all the way at the minumum - if I slide it up, it goes immediately back down (not incrementally down like a report on redhat bugzilla)
I used alsamixer and muted headphone sense and line jack sense, per another post.

lspci shows the device:
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
M

If you're using xmms version 1.2.10 or newer try choosing the dital audio extraction option. This could also be a mixer problem, what channels do you have available? What is your laptop model?
good luck.

xmms, xine, etc. work for playing mp3s.
i think it's a mixer problem, but i don't know how to solve it. when i right-click the gnome volume control and click preferences, it doesn't show ANY channels available.
arts-1.3.1-1 is installed.

my laptop is a gateway 4024GZ using theIntel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03).

thanks for the help!
M

Have you tried alsamixer, or any other mixers? There is usually more than one way to do things so another mixer may do the trick.

I asked about the xmms version because windows uses what is known as "digital audio extraction" whereby the sound is piped through the ide cable. The only app I'm aware of in linux that makes use of this is xmms version 1.2.10 or newer.

So the short answer is if you don't have an anolog cable connecting the drive to the sound card or motherboard, you'll need the newer version of xmms to hear cd's. Hope something here makes sense.
good luck.

I can play CDs using xine/etc., just not with the gnome CD player. What I can't do is adjust the system volume using the gnome volume control icon (top right of screen by default)- it shows no channels to control (under preferences) and gives the error no mixer elements or devices found (when clicking open volume control). how do i configure it to work (it's always worked in the past on other machines).
thanks!

The KDE kmix applet works to adjust the volume. I tried adding it to the panel (to replace the gnome version), but I can add only the launcher, which will then make the icon appear in the panel. Anyone know how to add the kmix volume control icon byn itself?
Also, any ideas as to why sound doesn't work with gnome apps/applets but does with KDE?
Thanks again!

Do you have aumix, have you tried it?

Just a guess, but gnome and kde use different sound daemons. Gnome uses esd, and kde uses arts. This might be the problem.
good luck.

The weirdest thing - I logged in as root (to see if maybe it was a permission thing) and sure enough the gnome-volume-control applet worked and identified all the channels. When I relogged in as regular user, it worked there too (I didn't change anything, just logged in a root, saw it worked, then logged out). On relogin, rhythmbox started loading as well. No idea what happened, but no complaints either.

The gnome CD player still doesn't work, but at this point I'll assume that my laptop doesn't have the separate audio cable - in either case, I set xine as the default for CDs and all is well.

Thanks again!

In case anyone is having the same problem - I logged in as root from the login screen (not just doing su or some such at the terminal). Obvious, I'm sure.