This morning I was startled to hear sound on intiating my mail reader!
This prompted me to consider using the subject thread, "How to succeed
without even trying" in reporting problem solved.
Prior to today, each time the system was booted volume controls on the
Alsamixer were set at zero. Studying man pages, ALSA documentation, and
Googling many hours over many days had failed to lead to a solution.
After each boot, I would Gnome Menu --> Sound & Video --> Volume
Control --> raise volume sliders on Alsa and OSS mixers (and sometimes
unmute Master Mono). Sometimes I would right click the Gnome Panel
volume control icon and select "open volume control".
Yesterday, I left clicked the Gnome Panel volume control icon and raised
the single slider that popped up. That's all, Folks! Done deal! When
I booted the system this morning, sound volume was already turned on.
Go Figure!
