Error while initializing the sound driver:

[fingers99]

Suddenly I get:

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device: default can't be opened for playback (Permission denied)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

When logging on as anyone other than root (sound works fine as root).

/etc/group reads:

audio:29:john:knoppix

/etc/group.org reads

audio:29:knoppix:john

all the dsp devices are root audio.

Any ideas? And can anyone tell me why there are group and group.org ?

Suddenly I can't pon as anyone other than root either. There doesn't seem to be any logic to this: all the entries suggest either user should be able to diallup, but the occurences do seem to have something to do with editing /etc/group.

[fingers99]

Well, I got the sound up and running by doing

chmod a+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer /dev/sequencer /dev/midi

as root, natch

(fortunately I'd kept the instructions for installing alsa from source, no, I didn't re-install, just ran the code above) but still trying to work out why I can no longer pon as anyone other than root.

[ferreter]

Suddenly I get:

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device: default can't be opened for playback (Permission denied)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

When logging on as anyone other than root (sound works fine as root).

/etc/group reads:

audio:29:john:knoppix

/etc/group.org reads

audio:29:knoppix:john

all the dsp devices are root audio.

Any ideas? And can anyone tell me why there are group and group.org ?

Suddenly I can't pon as anyone other than root either. There doesn't seem to be any logic to this: all the entries suggest either user should be able to diallup, but the occurences do seem to have something to do with editing /etc/group.

For the /etc/group file doesn't it need to be in the format of:

audio:29:john,knoppix

?

[Dave_Bechtel]

--This is how it looks on my system:

ls -l /usr/bin/pon
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 956 Nov 24 2002 /usr/bin/pon

--You might try ' chown USER.root ' on pon. If that still doesn't work you could try ' chmod +s /usr/bin/pon ' to setuid root on it. But if you do that I would ' chmod o-rwx ' on it, too, so other users can't get at it.

Well, I got the sound up and running by doing

chmod a+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer /dev/sequencer /dev/midi

as root, natch

(fortunately I'd kept the instructions for installing alsa from source, no, I didn't re-install, just ran the code above) but still trying to work out why I can no longer pon as anyone other than root.

[fingers99]

Thanks. I tried both and rebooted and now have both sound as user john and pon and poff I'm not sure which worked, yet, but WTH

Thanks again.