i am using CRUX 2.3 i686 on my AMD64. it has been 3 days i am searching Google with ALSA how to and ALSA setup, Linuxquestions.org, Linuxforums.org, Gentoo ALSA guide, TLDP alsa how to and CRUX archives at gmane and the best i have come up with are these: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.crux.general/740/match=al... http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.crux.general/735/match=al... http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.crux.general/2590/match=a... still, that does not solve my problem. here is what i have done PROBLEM: sound applications HANG when i start to play any audio. (e.g "ogg123" HANG with "ALSA write error") i did 5 *fresh* installations of CRUX, to experiment with ALSA and all of the times i used EXACTLY same kernel options i used for Gentoo and i never had any problem with them. ALSA was built into the kernel. "alsa-lib", "alsa-utils" and "alsa-oss" were installed. then i used alsamixer to unmute and raise the sounds. INSTALL # 1.) "ogg123"plays songs, no troubles. i recompiled the kernel but it does not help. did not try mpg321 this time. 2.) "Ogg123" HNAGS while starting to play a song. even mpg321 hangs :-( 3.) ogg123 and mpg321 hang when i try to play anything. 4.) both ogg123 and mpg321 play fine, no problems 5.) this time, i did not install alsa-lib/utils/oss packages. i want some help on what should i do ? also, in all of these cases i did not see any "alsa" in "/etc/rc.d" -- http://arnuld.blogspot.com/