I'm getting this error from my console prompt....
[root@beatbox root]# unsupported playback rate: 44100
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, stereo, 16bit failed
Trying 44.1Khz, 8bit stereo.
unsupported sound format: 32
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, stereo, 8bit failed
Trying 48Khz, 16bit stereo.
unsupported playback rate: 48000
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, stereo, 8bit failed
Trying 22.05Khz, 8bit stereo.
unsupported sound format: 32
Audio device open for 22.05Khz, stereo, 8bit failed
Trying 44.1Khz, 16bit mono.
unsupported playback rate: 44100
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, mono, 8bit failed
Trying 22.05Khz, 8bit mono.
unsupported sound format: 0
Audio device open for 22.05Khz, mono, 8bit failed
Trying 11.025Khz, 8bit stereo.
unsupported sound format: 32
Audio device open for 11.025Khz, stereo, 8bit failed
Trying 11.025Khz, 8bit mono.
unsupported sound format: 0
Audio device open for 11.025Khz, mono, 8bit failed
Trying 8.192Khz, 8bit mono.
unsupported sound format: 0
Audio device open for 8.192Khz, mono, 8bit failed
Trying 8Khz, 8bit mono.
unsupported sound format: 0
Sound device inadequate for Esound. Fatal.
.....i'm not sure why its doing this... the only apps I have running are AIM and Mozilla and this error pops up on my console window....

Looks like some app is trying to use the Esound driver for sound output, but your card is not supported with that driver. Are you running AIM and Mozilla from that console?

I'm starting aim in the console but, with the bs(&) option....its the aim calling that driver....i have sound working on my box...though i never actually manually configured the sound....if I wanted to how would go about cconfiguring the sound....thanks again..

What distro are you using and what kind of sound card?

I'm using Redhat 8 and the sound is onboard...I have a dell insprion 8200....how would I go to check what type of sound I have?? BIOS??? or is there is command for this...

You should be able to get that info from doing 'cat /proc/pci' w/out quotes of course. Post the output from that command.

I would look into AIM a little bit though, and see if there's a way to change the driver it is trying to use because if sound works well on everything else there's no reason to mess with it. Just work on the troublemaker which seems to be AIM. Look for the 'event' panel or something of the like (i don't use aim) where you can configure the sounds.