Make sure your not muting it to begin with.

When you ran sndconfig, you heard Linus Torvalds welcome you to Linux? (or whatever message that is that plays?) Does root hear sound but other users don't?? I'm a bit confused what exactly the problem is.

I think what he is saying is (strickly assuming) that my soundcard is not working. If thats the case'

• Go to your Mandrake Control Centre:
• Hardware
  
• HardDrake lists and help you to set up your hardware.
• Click on your soundcard
• Click on: Run config tool
• Then choose the driver: i810_audio ect....

When I installed Mandrake it din't detect my soundcard. I used sndconfig and yes I heard the sound samp;e. I went into KDE System Notification because you can test the sound. I tried to test it but no sound was heard. I checked aumix and nothing seems to be muted, Mandrake supports the integrated sound, it's a Crystal audio cs423x. Thanks

What was the brand of that laptop?
Resource: http://tuxmobil.org/sound_linux.html

IBM Thinkpad 560X, PII233mhz,64MMB Ram. 4.0GB hard drive. Mandrake detected everything but sound.

Does mandrake have a sound server that needs to be started? Also, check your aumix settings to insure they are not getting reset (Main, PCM...) to zero when you log out.

Aumix doesn't get reset to 0, I have checked it. If it has one, how do I initialize the sound server? Thanks

(suggestion)Give everyone read and write presmission on
Make sure the permissions and ownership are all setup right erego: