I set up a clean install of Slackware-current and added a user. I forgot to run alsaconf, logged out as root, logged in as the new user and started kde. All is running well including sound, I try play and aplay and both work. There no sound.conf file under /etc/modprobe.d

So my question is: is it really necessary to run alsaconf? or am I missing a small detail here?
thanks.

Normally ALSA modules are autoloaded by the kernel and everything is preconfigured, however, alsactl might have some issues if a sound.conf is not available for it to save the volume level settings with the mixer upon shutdowns and startups.Yes, you can run audio without using alsaconf, but having the script does help with setup and configuration.

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Thanks ReaperX!
I was wondering about that myself.

Thanks for the clarification, so I went with the working defaults then used alsamixer (as user) to tweak the different settings and typed the following to store them:
To restore, I added this line to .profile:
which seems to work well.

ALSA usually loads it's settings from these locations:

/home/%USER%/.asoundrc - this loads special custom stuff like which mixer is used by default, daemons, and other things

/etc/modules.conf - this usually handles the oss emulation portion and also multicard assignments for output and identification of those cards as well as options if needed.

/etc/alsa.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf (depending on OS distribution settings) - this is where mixer settings are loaded from for alsactl.

If needed, check your card at ALSA's main page on extra information for your sound card:

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page

/usr/sbin/alsaconf seems to have a few bugs relevant to the current situation with module-init-tools being replaced by kmod. depmod -m is deprecated and this is how one would have produced /lib/modules/`uname -r`/modules.pcimap and modules.isamap needed by the function build_card_db @ line 598. The sound card database fails to be produced.

I notice Debian removed alsaconf from alsa-utils in Squeeze. Should Slackware do the same for 14.0?