Im not sure if this is the right forum but im pretty sure it has to do with my sound card so here it goes. When i start up KDE i get a sound error (below)

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

Im not exactly sure what this means. I also don't even know what kind of sound card i have but i do know that its in there So when i try to play a music file, or any sound for that matter, i cant hear anything. I went to the control center and went under Information>Devices>Sound and it says
"Sorry, no information avaliable about Soundcard!"
If anyone could help me out and let me know what the problem is, and anyway to fix it, it would be greatly apreciated. Thanks in advance!

BTW: I have searched the forums and ive seen that i should try giving the command
modprobe emu10k1 or
modprobe cs46xx
Neither of these work

Dunno about the cs46xx, but the emu10k1 is the driver/module? for some of the soundblaster range of cards - erm presumably, it is a card and not an onboard device?

Cos I had serious snags getting the onboard device to work - have you tried some of the "no sound in ???" type thread's.

I did get the onboard to work, but it pissed me off that much, I bought a soundblaster 5.1 digital that uses the above mentioned driver thingy

And some more info i.e. what distro you use, as there are some distro specific forums to try mandrake users that I look at.

regards

John

Im using slackware if it helps, i didnt think i shouldve put this in the slackware forum because it seems like a general error. thanks for your help, im not sure what the emu10k1 drivers are, please excuse my n00bness

What distro do you use?

I just installed Debian 3.0 and I have that error. I *think* (for me) its because the kernel isn't compiled with sound modules (and that's ok cuz I plan to get rid of that 2.2 kernel anyway).

I also have Mandrake 9.0 installed and sound works fine (using the same modules you listed above)...

Im using Slackware 8.1 if that helps at all, i dont know if i have that module, im not even sure what it is

DiZASTiX,

for the comments about your distro, it might be an idea if you edit your user profile so your distro appears in the "box" on the left, because of the multitude of different ways that the different distro's acheive the same thing - that said, there are lots of slack users hereabouts.

There is a command for a shell (the small tv screen type image) but I am not a command line person and can't recall it, but for further investigations, lots of users have links as their signatures to some helpful stuff. MasterC, acid_kewpie(who's also a moderator) amongst others. If you see anything that says stuff like "newbie guide" etc, it's probably worth the "click"

also try googles linux pages and try for basic commands - yes, I know that I already said about not being a command line person, but it's true to say that it's just about the easiest way to get a lot of stuff done - I am presuming that you will need to find out what your sound device is and whether you have got some sort of sound module loaded - I am given to understand that slackware isn't necessarily the easiest distro to start with as a n00b, but you should learn a lot (and there's a lot to learn) and the google link is a hell of a good place to start, as is the linux documentation project.

regards

John