When I log in as root and do ls -l /dev/sound/dsp, I get crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 14, 3 Dec 31 1969 /dev/sound/dsp Then I log in as user troy and do ls -l /dev/sound/dsp, I get crw------- 1 troy audio 14, 3 Dec 31 1969 /dev/sound/dsp This holds true for devices in /dev/sound, /dev/scsi and /dev/tts (possibly more, this is all I found). The owner has changed, the permissions have changed and of course the date looks embarrasingly enough like a Y2K bug. When a second user logs in, the perms and owner do not change, and the new user is of course not able to access sound. I am running Gentoo 1.1a, and have run emerge rsync and emerge devfsd.
Please see the Desktop Configuration guide on www.gentoo.org The bigger clue is to look in /etc/devfsd.conf That file is well enough documented to get you out of your present situation. Finally, please make sure that user "troy" is a member of the audio group.
I'm seeing this problem on one (1) of my Gentoo 1.2 systems, where the audio, CD-ROM, and CD-RW device permissions are being changed by one particular user, through no deliberate action of his own. devfsd.conf is configured much the same as on all my other machines. The user in question is part of the requisite groups (audio where dsp* is concerned, cdrw for the burner, etc.) but notwithstanding that, when he changes the device permissionms to "0600", other users can not use those devices until devfsd is given a SIGHUP.
