[gentoo-user] After yrs of silence... I need sound

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

I've gone literally for yrs with no sound on my desktop machines.... I
rarely find a need for it.

But now I'm trying to take some online courses and find trying to work
on windows machine when coding and other sorts of editor intensive
stuff is involved... I really feel much more adept on linux.

Anyway cutting to the chase... its been so long since I even looked
into gettting sound working.. I'm sort of stunned at the realization I
have no clue at all as to how to get started.

I hoped to avoid reading acres of documentation.  Starting way at the
bottom etc etc.

Hoping some kind sole will take the time to provide a brief outline
off the top of there head... how to get started and cut right to the
chase in an hour or two.

My setup is profile x86/2008.0
On this architecture and kernel <past the `-r1' is my own versioning
Linux reader 2.6.30-gentoo-r1_rdr_5 #6 [...]i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) 
  CPU 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
I try to keep within a week or two being up to date most of the time.

I've got speakers hooked up at back of the machine in the `green'
hole.

I get nothing sound wise when attempting to play a music or video
file.

Neither do I see any errors:  mplayer some.wav from a cmdprompt shows
the file playing... but I'm hearing nothing.

Below are a few chunks of info that hopefully will be useful to
someone diagnostically:

My kernel has also enabled pci sound devices/:
  <M>   (Creative) Ensoniq AudioPCI 1370
  <M>   (Creative) Ensoniq AudioPCI 1371/1373   

lspci -vv shows this item:

  00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER
   (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)

   Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. 865PE Neo2-V
   (MS-6788) Mainboard

   Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr-
   Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-

   Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort-
   <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-

   Latency: 0
   Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 12
   Region 0: I/O ports at dc00 [size=256]
   Region 1: I/O ports at d800 [size=64]
   Region 2: Memory at febffa00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
   Region 3: Memory at febff900 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
   Capabilities: <access denied>
   Kernel driver in use: Intel ICH
   Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0