Hey Terrance, The fact that you don't see anything in /proc/asound suggests to me that there are no alsa modules loaded in your kernel. What output do you get from lsmod? Maybe you could also attach the kernel config that was used to build your currently running kernel. If you are using the kernel that came with your distro this should be /boot/config... If you built your own kernel this should be /usr/src/linux/.config. Here is the alsa card matrix for cirrus logic (I believe that this is the manufacturer of Crystal Soundfusion chips). There are a few different cards here. You may be able to find your particular varity by checking out the output from lspci or by checking the manufacturer of your laptops web site. I suspect that your screen reader is using oss and that the alsaconf utility modified /dev/dsp and this is why it's not working now. I think that the first thing to do is confirm that alsa is not loaded by checking out lsmod. The second thing to do is setup alsa drivers if they are not setup. The driver, lib, & util can be downloaded from alsa-project.org. If you can't determine the exact model of chip you can just compile all of the chips listed on the below link. There are installation instructions on that page if you follow the chipset links. Also, If you have the oss drivers for that chip loaded they will need to be unloaded with rmmod. Let me know if any of this is confusing. Also, if anyone else on the list thinks I am leading Terrence down the wrong path please speak up. -Garett http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=vendor-Cirrus_Logic Terrence van Ettinger wrote: