Hi I am fairly inexperienced with linux and I really do want to take the time to learn all linux has to offer but I am a little impatient to get the initial setup complete and I am having touble with my soundcard. when i try and to anything in the kde sound config thing i get an error message of
"Sound server informational message:

Error while initializing the sound driver"

device: default can't be opened for playback (no suck file or
directory)

The sound server will continue, using the null output device."

I read that I probably need alsa and there is an option for the audio service Advanced Linux Sound Architecture in my device list but it gives me that error. My card is a pci soundblaster audigy. I tried dling alsa but I dont really know what to do with what i downloaded.

You should already have alsa.
As root run alsaconf.

Then alsamixer, to adjust sound. And to save it type (as root) "alsactl store"

First thanks a lot for the prompt reply i am gratefull but I did the alsa congiguration and found my soundcard then i went to the mixer and with a little reading i founf i needed to do alsamixer -c 1 to select my soundcard and in theree it gave me various volume controlls but no place to enter text to type alsactl store and when i exited the mixer and entered alsactl store in the commandline thing it gave me an error about it being an unknown command

edit: I figured out what i was doing wrong and i did alsactl store 1 and got no error but when i load the kde controll module to set the soundcard it still gives me that same error and i get the error everytime i load kde

You can change the volume as a user with alsamixer, but need to be root to store the changes with alsactl store.

Use alsamixer to set the volume properly. Exit out of alsamixer with control-c. Su to root. then alsactl store, then exit to return to your user account.

There's probably a better way to do this only as a user, but this is what I do.

People will need more info to help you.

Do you know anything more than audigy?

What is your mboard?
Do you have integrated sound and the 2nd audigy board?
edit: if you have both did you deactivate integrated sound in bios?

What distribution (slackware12.2)?

What does lspci (as root) show regarding sound or unknowns?

If all seems to be working what does aplay -l show?

Have you increased the volume in alsa mixer and alsamixer -c1 (if appropriate) and save as alsactl store (as root).

If all of that seems to be OK, it might be issue with kde settings. Instead try xine and mplayer.

mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=0.0 yoursong

(hw might also be 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1.0, or 1.3 but you should see see this from aplay -l as these will be the card and device)

Thanks for your help I am not sure what I did actually but I did get things working and the problem is solved