ESD works as root; not as normal users

[Brandon Guy <beg14+ pitt edu>]

If I startup gnome as root, I get sound from esd.  Xmms's esound plugin
works; my esd-compliant mpg123 works all gnome sounds work.  However,
when I startup gnome as a normal user I get no sound while esd is
running(quake3 wont even start ;) .  Xmms does not work; mpg123 does not
work; and all gnome sounds are caput.  I do not get any error messages
while running or restarting esd(except the occasionally satle socket
"/tmp/.esd/socket" spiel).  I have even tried starting esd as root, then
issuing: 'esdctl unlock' then logging in as a normal user but to no
avail.  I have installed and uninstalled many different versions(both
binary and source) of esd in hopes of getting it to work.  I am
currently running esd-0.2.18 on slackware-7.1.

Thanks for any help or insight provided,
Brandon Guy