Applications compiled with esound are supposed to fail over
to /dev/dsp if esound is not running.  Currently this does
not work and fails.  An example of this behavior is mpg123q
which is in /mnt/redhat/comps/dist/6.0/

output of this type of problem is:

write(2, "Unable to connect to server port"..., 39Unable to
connect to server port 35091
) = 39
write(2, "This generally means that the pr"..., 74This
generally means that the program could not talk to the
esound server
) = 74
open("/dev/dsp", O_WRONLY)              = 4
ioctl(4, SNDCTL_DSP_SETFRAGMENT, 0xbffff5a4) = 0
ioctl(4, SNDCTL_DSP_SETFMT, 0xbffff5a4) = 0
ioctl(4, SNDCTL_DSP_GETFMTS, 0xbffff5a4) = 0
ioctl(4, SNDCTL_DSP_STEREO, 0xbffff5a4) = 0
ioctl(4, SNDCTL_DSP_SPEED, 0xbffff5a4)  = 0
write(2, "unsupported playback rate: -1\n", 30unsupported
playback rate: -1
) = 30
close(4)                                = 0
write(2, "audio: Connection refused\n", 26audio: Connection
refused
) = 26
munmap(0x40013000, 4096)                = 0
_exit(1)                                = ?


or without an strace:

[root@kenny stuff]# mpg123 rms.mp3
High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layer 1,
2 and 3.
Version 0.59q (1999/Jan/26). Written and copyrights by
Michael Hipp.
Uses code from various people. See 'README' for more!
THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! USE AT YOUR
OWN RISK!
opening socket, format = 0x00001021 at -1 Hz
Unable to connect to server port 35091
This generally means that the program could not talk to the
esound server
unsupported playback rate: -1
audio: Connection refused