I've reinstalled SuSE 9.1 after a hard drive upgrade and an audio problem previously encountered has reappeared.  It was solved a few months ago with the help of this group but for some reason my ALUG mail folder was wiped during the backup/restore so I don't have the previous messages.

Basically, the system has stopped emitting sound.  Immediately post installation I heard a few noises but now I'm trying to play mp3s or videos, nada. I seem to remember the answer had to do with using alsaconf instead of YAST's audio settings.   Running alsaconf to set up the VIA VT8233 sound system first throws three warnings about "modinfo: command not found" but then detects the sound system and claims to set it up.  After that, XMMS complains about "Couldn't open audio - please check that..(etc)" and doesn't play the file.

However, it may or may not be relevant that on boot, as KDE is setting up I get an "Error - KDesktop" with the rather ungrammatical message "Could not start process Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said Unknown protocol 'devices'". Presumably something I've screwed up; might it be related?

Can anyone remember how they helped me last time, or can suggest what to do?

-- GT