alsa and oss configuration

[Lubos Vrbka <shnek@tiscali.cz>]

hi guys,

i'm trying to get sound working on my machine, however something doesn't 
seem to work ok...

lspci reports the card as VIA Technologies Inc., VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97
Audio Controller

i've got 2.6.11 kernel with OSS disabled and ALSA enabled (compiled into
the kernel). OSS Mixer API, OSS PCM API and OSS Sequencer API are
compiled into the kernel as well. controller for my card is also
compiled in - it's VIA82C686A/B, 8233/8235 AC97 Controller from the "PCI
devices" section.

after boot, i have appropriate(?) lines in dmesg:
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.8 (Thu Jan 13
09:39:32 2005 UTC).
via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample rate.
         Please try dxs_support=1 or dxs_support=4 option
         and report if it works on your machine.
ALSA device list:
  #0: VIA 8237 with ALC658 at 0xe600, irq 22

then, i can use my soundcard via OSS (how come? i didn't compile the OSS
in. is it coming from the emulation?) strangely, only root can access
the mixer (/dev/mixer) and dsp (/dev/dsp), although my user is a member
of the correct group (audio) that owns the files in /dev. changing 
permissions of these 2 files to 666 helps.
why adding user to a group doesn't solve it?

i tried alsaconf to find my card - didn't find anything. also, alsamixer
fails:
function sdl_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory

what's going on here? do i need to remove the abovementioned OSS
emulation parts of the kernel and compile them as modules? or does the
problem lie somewhere else? the answer is probably obvious, but i can't
see it...

thank you for any hint.

best regards,

--
Lubos
_@_"