I would like to use ALSA, rather than OSS, but I'm having permission issues. I can use ALSA with xmms when I run xmms as root, but I would like to change the sound option under kcontrol to use ALSA, and have all other media applications that I use, to utilize ALSA instead, but I get permission errors. I tried reading up on permissions, but I don't know what to change, and I still don't understand how to set device permissions in order to get this to work.. Has anyone got any steps that I could follow, in order to get ALSA to work on a non-root level?

In Slackware 10 joining the audio group will be sufficient to gain rights on audio devices. Otherwise a search on audio and permissions will give enough threads with solutions to your problem.

ok, so how would i have a user join an audio group?

You've to edit the file /etc/group
Look for a line that says audio::17: (or similar) and make it look like:
audio::17:youruser
or if you've already a user there separate them with a , ie: audio::17:otheruser,youruser

ok, so then after that I can just simply tell xmms , and kcontrol to use ALSA?

nevermind that last post, it answered my own question, but my other issue now is, how do i get multiple sounds to work at the same time, instead of a delay , after each sound has finished?