hello,

running kernel 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 (32 bit), recently built and patched via Yum and apt-get. The hardware is 
AMD64 4000+ on Gigabyte ga-k8n ultra-9.

Sound worked fine for the singular user setup via Anaconda. I added a second user via 

 <alt-F1> -> System Settings -> Users and Groups

When logging into this 2nd user account there appeared the strange error
 "can't access /dev/dsp"

further the mixer seemed to break and showed up with the disabled icon. It seems that all new users, <login>, have as default primary group, <login>. This is unclean/messy.

Here's what I ended up doing to fix the problem. I want a handful of users to be able to log into the box with sound available, then also be able to define users which will only login via remote -- call them shell users (for web sites).

(please suggest improvements or corrections)
------------ begin fc4 perms patch ----------
[root@fc4 me]#groupadd audio
[root@fc4 me]#pico /etc/group
   add root to the new "audio" group

Now we will change permissions on the <sound> glob in file, 50-default.perms

[root@fc4 me]#cd /etc/security/console.perms.d/
[root@fc4 me]#pico 50-default.perms

 find this line and correct as shown below:
<console> 0660 <sound> 0660 root.audio

 next put the relevant devices into our new group
[root@fc4 me]#chgrp audio \
   >/dev/midi* \
   >/dev/snd  \
   >/dev/snd/*  \
   >/dev/mixer*  \
   >/dev/dsp*

existing users can be repaired as
[root@fc4 me]#usermod -g users -G audio <login>

for new users, start with this
[root@fc4 me]#useradd -g users -G audio,(+ whatever) <login>

------------- end patch ------------

If you like, go into the "Users and Groups" applet and remove the now useless groups, named as <login>.

thanks for your comments,
Mark
-- 
http://www.tlviewer.org (FC4)