/dev/dsp Permission Denied

[Tom Betz]

Troy Davidson wrote:
> If I log in as my user, who setup KUbuntu on my box, I have sound and
> it works fine in all apps.
> 
> But, I have users for my wife and son.  They log in and get a message
> saying something like "can't use audio.  /dev/dsp (Permission
> Denied)".  I look at /dev/dsp and it is RW for Root and Audio.

I ran into something similar last night (under KDE -- I have both KDE 
and Gnome installed), but logged in only as myself, a single user. 
Every audio app was locking up completely, except for 1by1 (which I run 
under wine) which told me that the WAV device was locked.  When I tried 
to log in to a Gnome session (as the same user), I was told that 
/dev/dsp was locked.  Even rebooting the system didn't fix it.

I ended up having to go into the Sound preferences settings and 
selecting the OSS input device, which then restarted the sound system 
and everything worked again.

-- 
Tom Betz, System Administrator
Greyston Foundation
Phone 914-376-3903 ext 230
Processing the finest bytes since 1982...