Ok this has been driving mildly nuts for the past week:

2.6.9 kernel, with compiled in sound support, and with (or without) nforce's 0292 driver set. No music, no sound, no nothing IN Fact there isn't even a /dev/dsp

Now i can handle that, normally when that happen's i'd recompile the kernel, not install the nforce drivers, and go about my life, which was fine (and still is really). Except, i've done that, and it did it (the date stamps are the same, and so forth), but still no /dev/dsp

And whether i run nvsound (the nforce sound module) makes no difference, there is no /dev/dsp (which i would have figured would just "re-appear").

THIS however is the bit that baffles me:

XMMS, arts, mpg123 doesn't succeed either. though mpg123 checks /dev/snd and that is there (not that i'm sure which one is the right device to use)

But, despite all this software not working ... amarok does. amarok is running the xine engine (the only one that seems to work ok).

Anyone have any idea's why this is happening and how i fix it, without resorting to violence ?

Hmm ... thge plot thickens ... under 2.6.6 all is fine ... even my USB stick works flawlessly ... (on 2.6.9 it was a little like lottery) ... i think i'll stick with 2.6.6 until i 1) have time to check out the configuration in depth, or 2) a new version comes out (and i have time to configure it in depth).