This looks like a permission issue:
ls -l /dev/dsp
shows you the owner, group and permission flags for that file. I don't know how much you know about permission, but you have there are three classes: owner, group and other, in that order. If you're neither the owner, nor a member of the group, then you are other. Regardless, make sure you have rwx permission for what ever applies to your status as a user. Don't think that because you are the owner, or a member of the file's group, that you have access to the file. All of this is set. In otherwords, the owner of the file could set permission to deny the owner, the group, yet allow other to access the file. (Not likely, but it is possible.)
As simple fix, if you don't need to worry about "other" access to your sound device, is to:
chmod 666 /dev/dsp
One other thing. If the ls -l command above show /dev/dsp to be a link, then you need to check permissions on the link too. Same goes for it, as for /dev/dsp.
This will likely clear that startup error message, but might break alsa. Try it.
David Weeks
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "dkmweeks" (Jun 11th 2005, 5:01pm)