Alsa Driver and kernel 2.4.9

[jwantz at hpcc2.hpcc.noaa.gov]

Hi List,
I have had problems in getting the alsa driver 0.5.11 to work with the
2.4.9 kernel.  amixer seems to work, but all else fails.  When I attempt
to run sfb (a Kirk supplied speak freely script)  all seems normal until
you hit the space bar to talk and the message: "unable to initialize audio
channel" is printed and you are dumped back into the shell.  This message
does NOT seem to be in the Speak Freely source.  I have not checked the
alsa driver source yet.  freeamp and trplayer fail as well.  Any
suggestions?  Compile an earlier kernel maybe?  Or am I missing something
obvious.  /proc/asound looks normal.

     Jim WB0TFK