Hello all,

When I log into the console (KDE, run level 4) as root, I have sound. When I log in to the console as someone else, I don't have sound.

I know there are a number of threads here that propose one answer to this problem as simply adding each user to the "audio" group. But I see in /etc/login.defs that a person who logs into the console should automatically be made a member of the "floppy", "audio", "video", etc. groups ala the CONSOLE_GROUPS setting. I like this approach and would like to figure out why it isn't working for me.

I see that the CONSOLE variable points to the /etc/securetty file, which contains the names of seven ttys that are tied to the console. If I log in at run level 3, I obtain one of these consoles (tty1) and if I type "id", I see I am a member of the CONSOLE_GROUPS as desired. Running "startx" at this point fires up KDE, and upon opening any terminal window there and typing "id" again, I am still a member of said groups, even though my new terminal window is something like /dev/pts/1.

So things work fine if I start the system at run level 3, log in as a normal user, and then startx. Typing "ps -eaf | grep tty" shows a bunch of my processes tied to the desired ttys.

If I automatically boot into run level 4 and log in as a normal user, typing "ps -eaf | grep tty" doesn't show anything tied to a desired tty (except root's /sbin/agetty).

Thanks for any assistance in getting CONSOLE_GROUPS to work for me!

GL

CONSOLE_GROUPS is only called when you log into a shell, so it will not be called in run level 4. The CONSOLE variable just specifies which consols root can log into.

Was there any particular reason why don't you just add your user to the audio group manually?

regards,
...drkstr

I guess it just seemed inelegant when I thought that login.defs should do the trick. Now I see that login.defs won't cut it. Thanks for the response! I'll go ahead and add myself to the audio group now...

GL