Description of Problem: After installation, on the first user login, the firstboot program starts. It runs the sound card detector, and the sound card (an Audigy in my case) is detected, and can play a test sound successfully. After firstboot finishes, the sound configuration defaults to having no sound server running, and sound-generating programs such as tuxracer and xmms will produce no sound. The sound card detector utility can still play a test sound successfully. Other applications produce no sound. If the sound server is enabled, and the user logs out and back in, then sounds from programs like xmms and tuxracer work properly. The default behavior should have sounds available to applications in the first gnome session, as well as subsequent sessions, without manually enabling these. Additional Information: (katzj states that the defaults are off in the upstream source, too, and that event sounds should be off because "they suck." I'm not commenting on the event sounds, but on the proper operation of sound servers for sound-generating applications such as xmms and tuxracer.)
I don't seem to have this problem. When I do a fresh install, I can start xmms and hear music without having to change anything. The default volume isn't very loud, but it certainly seems audible. However, I've had numerous people tell me that the default is so low that they can't hear it. It makes me wonder if the default sound level doesn't have something to do with the hardware. I have two identical test machines at my desk. Both have integrated Cirrus Logic sound cards. One machine also has a PCI SoundBlaster. The default sound for the SoundBlaster is much louder than the Cirrus Logic, which is very quiet. I'm not sure if there's much I can do about this...
However, on my test box which is a fresh install of 8.0, esd gets started when you log into Gnome. If this is not the case on your machine, it sounds like esd is the problem, not redhat-config-soundcard.
I have been unable to reproduce this problem with both 8.0 and our latest internal trees. Resolving as 'worksforme'