I am having problems with sound in lenny. The volume control says:
"The volume control did not find any elements and/or devices to control. This means either that you don't have the right GStreamer plugins installed, or that you don't have a sound card configured."

please help me out i tried the alsa but still sound not there.

Well start with the lspci output to determine what your sound hardware is and if linux sees it on a hardware level, it should also tell you what if any kernel module is loaded to work with that hardware. If you do not see a module loaded try to find what module is used for your hardware and manually load it. Post the lspci output here and maybe we can also help you figure out what the issue is if those basic steps don't resolve the issue.

If the hardware is visible as scheidel21 mentions, check if pulseaudio is installed and running. Try typing killall pulseaudio in a root console and if the sound works then you're one of the lucky who's a victim of pulseaudio/alsa incompatibility. Some versions don't go along together. In that case, the only option is to remove pulseaudio by typing apt-get remove pulseaudio in the (same) root console. After an X restart everything should be working normal. Without pulseaudio your maximum number of applications using alsa simultaniously will be reduced dramaticly, but at least you've got sound then.

*edit

BTW: try typing alsamixer if none of above works or is the case. If this works fine, the problem is in your volume control plugin.

Have you tried running alsaconf as root from a shell?
Then answer the questions to choose which sound device to use.

And as Laurens has mentioned run alsamixer afterwards,to check that the appropriate volume levels are not turned down or muted.

I have problems in my sound in lenny it is not yet detected.i tried alsa and the card was detected foll is the Output.also i cant get sound>in my system preferences tab.
also some other op that i got from some commands are shown.
i cant find dev/dsp
only dev/snd is there.
please help me out.

===============================================================================

Now ALSA is ready to use.
For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.

Have a lot of fun!

root@debian:/# lspci | grep audio
01:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1988 Allegro-1 (rev 12)



root@debian:/# lsmod | grep snd
snd_maestro3 15908 0
firmware_class 6656 1 snd_maestro3
snd_ac97_codec 88228 1 snd_maestro3
ac97_bus 1664 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss 32544 0
snd_mixer_oss 12288 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 60680 3 snd_maestro3,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 7816 1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_dummy 2692 0
snd_seq_oss 24832 0
snd_seq_midi 5664 0
snd_rawmidi 18592 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 6528 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 40784 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 17668 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 6412 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd 44964 10 snd_maestro3,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_ti mer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 6112 1 snd