When I boot directly into GNOME I get no sound whatsoever, however if I boot into KDE (arts server is turned off, as is the GNOME sound server - turning the latter on has no effect) I get sound in apps like XMMS, then if I log out and back into GNOME sound is working fine! I just use sound for xmms and have tried all the plugins with no effect.

I'm using the nForce chipset (which emulates the i810 sound chipset) and have only had this issue with slackware, the sound worked fine with suse previously - can anyone understand why this is the case and how I can start GNOME with sound support without having to boot into KDE first.

Thanks.

I have real i810 built in sound
Try modprobe i810_audio
In my case it worked
If modprobe was succesful then
edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules
and put /sbin/modprobe i810_audio in Sound section