You need to set up ALSA:
www.alsa-project.org.
 
Here's a mini-howto:
 
www.alsa-project.org/~valentyn/Alsa-sound-mini-HOWTO.html
 
There is a step in the process where all the necessary entries in /dev are defined.

I still can't get most of the ALSA stuff to work ,I could be way off but it appears to me that the knoppix filetree is non-standard and the programs can't find their way when I try to make.Do I need to get a real version of linux or just keep pluging away?

Once you install Knoppix, you will in essence, have Debian, which *should* have the packages you need installed via apt-get. emu10k1.o should also be available as you will have access to the Debian apt repositories. Doing a quick apt-get on my wife's laptop, I find listed:
 
alsa-base 1.0.2c-3

I get synaptic going and queue alsa-base and it also queues alsa-utils ,but alsa-utils will not install ,this is what I get:
 
trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/alsamixer', which is also in package knx-alsa dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (broken pipe)
 
does the broken pipe mean my program in leaking out of the computer? j/k ,what counter steps should I now take?

OK ,realized since I never got this far I never bothered to search the intarweb fer info ,this is where I now stand...
 
figured how to force overwrite of the alsa-utils ,then it cries that it can't configure because alsa-base is not configured.Did apt-get install alsa-base
 
Setting up libasound2 (1.0.1-1) ...
Setting up libfltk1.1c102 (1.1.4-3) ...
Setting up alsamixergui (0.9.0rc2-1-4) ...
Setting up libasound2-dev (1.0.1-1) ...
Setting up libasound0.4 (0.4.1e-10.2) ...
Setting up alsa-utils (1.0.2-1) ...
Setting up alsa-base (1.0.2c-3) ...
 
I start getting excited then I config the alsa-base and setup my proper driver but I still get the same error. "/dev/dsp no such device using null output device.Any other ideas?

Found these...
 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-multimedia/2003/debian-multimedia-200311/msg00010.html
 
http://mailman.linuxtag.org/pipermail/debian-knoppix/2003-June/003323.html
 
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6535&highlight=
 
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/42/2003/12/4/129160

Well it's looking like I gotta rebuild my kernel for a good permenant alsa install ,but all is not lost ,if run off the CD with the "knoppix alsa" argument I have sound.So I'll just run that way while I learn about kernels and the like.Thank you for all the help to this point ,it's got me in the right direction.

I can't belivce the simplicity of it but I got it working.All I did was type "alsa_init" at shell prompt.w00t ,gloriouse sound.

Wahoo!! Congratulations!!

Originally posted by Ravage:

Quote:figured how to force overwrite of the alsa-utils ,then it cries that it can't configure because alsa-base is not configured.Did apt-get install alsa-base

 
I'm having this same problem, except with a different sound card -- how did you convince apt to overwrite??