how is /dev/dsp created?
 

ok, i've been using linux on and off for a while, but now i'm making an effort to get it working 100% and use it. i have a asus motherboard with onboard sound using the nforce4 chipset. in the kernel there are alsa drivers for it. so i enable them as modules, and then after i boot, i run alsaconf, it finds the driver and configures it for me, and after that i have sound. now the problem is, i'm using vmware workstation, and it looks for sound in /dev/dsp. i want to know more about when that is created, and why? will i ever have a /dev/dsp set up, if i configure the sound in this way? also, if i wanted those drivers to be built directly into the kernel, how would i configure the sound. if i run alsaconf with those things built in directly as opposed to modules, it cant find them. should sound just be available at boot up then?
thanks

I don't know about most anything you're asking but you create device files like that with mknod. A quick search shows the exact incantation in this case could be 'mknod /dev/dsp c 14 3'

but shouldnt it be created on its own when your sound driver loads? i'm trying to figure out what /dev/dsp's relationship is with creation of sound.

IIUC, /dev/dsp is an OSS thing. You're using ALSA. You may need oss-compatibility stuff or something. I once had to create a /dev/dsp file to make an old video game (xgalaga) happy and I gather it's mostly old games and emulators and proprietary stuff and whatnot who haven't caught up. I could be wrong about this; it's just my understanding.

alrighty, i fixed it. first i enabled oss in the kernel. then i noticed in /etc/conf.d/alsasound that there was a line:
ENABLE_OSS_EMUL="no"
i changed it to yes, and restarted alsasound, ran alsaconf. and now it works.
its nice to run vmware with xp while running gentoo.
thanks for your help