On Sun, 2012-02-12 at 20:30 -0500, Mark LaPierre wrote: > No such audio driver 'pulse' > Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. > Audio: no sound > Video: no video > > > Exiting... (End of file) ------------------------------------ You should get this: `mplayer -ao pulse my.mp3` Opening audio decoder: [mpg123] MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400) Selected audio codec: [mpg123] afm: mpg123 (MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III) ========================================================================== AO: [pulse] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) Video: no video Starting playback... A: 41.3 (41.3) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.5% MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: play_audio A: 41.3 (41.3) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.5% Exiting... (Quit) --------------------------------------------------------------------- With ALSA: mplayer -ao alsa my.mp3 ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [mpg123] MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400) Selected audio codec: [mpg123] afm: mpg123 (MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III) ========================================================================== AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) Video: no video Starting playback... A: 12.7 (12.7) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.4% MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: play_audio A: 12.8 (12.7) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.4% Exiting... (Quit) ---------------------------------------- On a corectly configured DAW Machine with pulseaudio you should be able to run: `padsp mplayer my.mp3` AO: [oss] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Video: no video Starting playback... A: 11.1 (11.1) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.4% MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: play_audio A: 11.2 (11.1) of 254.0 (04:14.0) 0.4% ---------------------------------------------------------- On EL6 you should be using ALSA for mplayer as alsa targets pulse. > aplay file.mp3 says: > Playing raw data 'file.mp3' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono > > Still just makes a nasty hiss. `aplay -f dat my.wav` is what you want. "little indianess" byte words. > Still no /dev/dsp. Maybe there isn't supposed to be one for my sound > hardware? I said previously there is NO ""/dev/dsp"" and there want be one for EL6. If perhaps you had one then you really have someing funny going on. > lspci says: > Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 > AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60) Those cards can be nothing but problems. Some say that there are common in linux but I say nothing but common trouble. When did you update the the kernel last? Something good is `alsa-info` and read the instructions on the terminal and where to run it and get the standard output of it. You could try a diffeernt "codec" besides "lame" like mpg123. Does asound.conf point to the pulses conf file? It is a normal thing that pulseaudio will pop and skip and snap crackle when it does not have enough of a Buffer or Priority and when a card is going bad. Since in the above mplayer can not access pulse last thing you could do is reinstall all the pulse packages.