Vaibhav Vaidya wrote:

> A queer problem:
> 
> The sound in X doesnt get enabled until I go to sound card detection and
> play test sound...
> 
> i.e. I start X, start Xmms, it starts playing but there's no sound. Then I
> open soundcard detection, until I click the play test sound button there's
> no sound. As soon as I click it, it remains depressed and the Xmms sound
> starts off. when I stop xmms, then the test sound plays... after which
> sound is enabled including the shut-down sound.
> 
> This brings up another question: my sound card is detected as intel audio
> etc... which is correct. In WinXP, multiple sounds (e.g. sound from xmms
> and test sound) can play concurrently and appear as mixed sound. But in
> linux, unless I stop a song, other sounds (say yahoo messenger message
> notifications) dont play. and when I stop it, ALL queued sounds play one
> after the other (e.g. from yahoo I get a waterfall of notifier sounds.)
> 
> Any solutions to any of these problems?
> --Vaibhav


Try different sound subsystem. If you are using GNOME go to Preferences::More 
Preferences::Multimedia Systems Selector (or from command line: gstreamer-properties).

Try ESD first for both "Default Sink" and "Default Source".