Need help getting ALSA to work in Sarge

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@peakpeak.com>]

I'm running Sarge, X windows, and Gnome. I have a CMI8738 sound card.
Sound works under Knoppix, so my problem is with software and dummy
user. I've installed all the stuff that has alsa in its package name and
that seems plausibly necessary. I've run alsaconf. Before I started this
project I already had a sound volume icon on my top menu bar. Now I
expect that it should work, but it doesn't. There is a diagonal bar 
across it, which I suppose indicates that sound is disabled, and I do
indeed have no sound.

When I click on the volume control, I get and error message window:
Couldn't open mixer device /dev/sound/mixer
This puzzles me. Shouldn't the required device software have been set
up by the install scripts? Is there a 'Sound on Debian for Dummies' 
that I can look at?

Thanks

-- 
Paul E Condon 
pecondon@peakpeak.com