sound issues

[Tim Gunning <TimG@profero.com>]

Hi all

Ive been looking for most of the day but cant seem to find anything that
really helps me.
When KDE loads I get the "/dev/dsp cannot be opened debian" message, CD's
play fine though, just nothing else, I tried "modprobe sb esstype=1788"
(from another preson having this prob) but got device busy/resource busy,
the soundcard is a ESS 1778.
Below is the output from lsmod and lspci
lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C501/2
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513 (rev 01)
00:01.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C601 (rev 01)
00:06.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems TGUI 9660/968x/968x
(rev d3)
00:0d.0 PCMCIA bridge: Omega Micro Inc. 82C092G (rev 02)
00:0e.0 PCMCIA bridge: Omega Micro Inc. 82C092G (rev 02)

lsmod:
Module                  Size  Used by    
xirc2ps_cs             12532   1 
soundcore               2452   0  (autoclean)
ds                      6048   4  [xirc2ps_cs]
i82365                 21092   4 
pcmcia_core            42408   0  [xirc2ps_cs ds i82365]
af_packet               6152   1  (autoclean)
ppp                    20316   0  (unused)
slhc                    4384   0  [ppp]
ip_masq_raudio          2944   0  (unused)
ip_masq_portfw          2536   0  (unused)
ip_masq_mfw             3156   0  (unused)
ip_masq_irc             2064   0  (unused)
ip_masq_ftp             3584   0  (unused)
nfsd                  159768   0  (unused)
nfs                    40556   0  (unused)
lockd                  41756   0  [nfsd nfs]
sunrpc                 57816   0  [nfsd nfs lockd]
unix                   11352 102  (autoclean)

dunno if Im missing something but I cant see a sound device in there.
I've tried using sndconfig but its asking me to recompile my kernel with
soundcore.o (is this my whole problem ?), if so can anyone point me in the
right direction.

thanks for any help

tim

btw, am using linux 2.2.19 (woody)