Anthony Renaud wrote:
I began my problems with programs like audacity,ardour etc. I could not get them up and running,it was ardour that could not connect to Jack or audacity that had problems with the audio input/output layer.But I got that my problem was more difficult: the system could not play any sound. [...]
Are you using Gnome? I found that I had to disable Gnome system sounds in order to get Audacity, XMMS, etc to produce sound. There appears to be a conflict with the ESD.
Desktop -> Preferences -> Sound In the 'Sounds' tab untick 'Enable software sound mixing (ESD)' Chris.