esd & mixer problem

[MC_Vai <"estoy"@ver.megared.net.mx>]

When I try to adjust the audio properties with the "Audio Mixer" in
GNOME I get these error message:

"No Mixers Found. Make sure you have sound support compiled into the
kernel"

But I checked and this is the output of '% cat /dev/sndstat':
========================================
...
...
...
Mixers:
0: Sound Blaster Live!
=========================================

I used to have a similar problem with /dev/dsp and it turns out to be
that the esd daemon was not properly loaded so I think it might be
something like that with the Mixer. Which by the way, I appreciate
somebody tell me if it's alright to put this line in /etc/init.d/gdm:
# Load the esd daemon
esd &

Is this correct?

Any sugestions will be appreciated, thanks in advance.