sound events, run level 5, esd dumps

[Michael Blaustein <mblauste capaccess org>]

I just read a few messages about playing sound events under gnome
1.2, but they don't seem to help with my particular problem:

While various other sound applications such as realplay work, "sound
events" won't play.  The /dev/dsp device is readable by my user, I
have set DISPLAY to (1) nothing, letting X take care of itself; or 
(2) :0 ; or (3) :0.0

None of these solutions avails.  When I try to play a sound event
(e.g. using the control-panel to test sounds), esd dumps core.  This
also happens at other times, frequently (but not always) soon after I
log in. (gdb says the command line was
       `esd -terminate -nobeeps -as 2 -spawnpid 15167' )

I'm in run level 5, using gdm 2 and gnome 1.2, with esd 0.2.18.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Michael Blaustein
mblauste@capaccess.org