Well, I am fairly inexperienced Linux user that just recently built and upgraded to 2.6.7 kernel on my slackware 9.1 box, After all the possible configurations for building support into my kernel for my Aureal Vortex 2 sq(3500?) I could dream up I can not get any sound out of it. After rebooting and logging in, I will play a sound, (i.e. random .wav) with XMMS or whatever gnome uses and the oscilloscope will move or in the case of a cd the track progresses, but I get no sound. I have unmuted (I think!?) my sound card using 'alsamixer' but either I am not doing that right or it is not working at all. I have built in Sound Card support for my Aureal and include all the ALSA related options.

Aureal Vortex2 sq2(3?)500
Slackware 9.1
2.6.7 kernel
AMD Athlon 900MHz
FIC AZ11 (DISABLED ALL LEGACY/BLASTER SOUND SUPPORT IN BIOS) Motherboard
Geforce 2 pro

Not that my post is going to help you in anyway, but I replaced a riptide / HP sound card with an Aureal sound card I bought and it has never worked for me with kernel 2.6. I'm still awaiting answers in another thread about this same issue.

Cullen,
The simple stuff first. There are typically two stages to unmuting your card in alsamixer. The first is to use the M key to remove the mute. The second is to use the arrows to ensure your levels are up. You will want to bring up Master, Master Digital and PCM at a minimum.
Next thing is, see if you can play your sound with aplay. Sometimes oss emulation isn't working, but ALSA is working fine. That is a totally different problem, of course.
And take heart... There are lots of us with Aureal cards that work. The 2.6 Aureal drivers are problematic right now, but Aureal support in ALSA has been good for a while, and they're working hard to make it that way again!

Ted