I was also having problems getting sound. I tried what you said & it worked but I had to start xmms from console as root. On the next boot I got an error 'couldn't open device /dev/dsp (Permission denied)' & again no sound unless I started xmms from console as root. permissions for /dev/dsp are user =root, group=audio, rw for user & group. I assume these are default values. What else do I have to do to get sound as user without having to start xmms as root?