It won't. My script-fu is strong enough and I'm willing to do it, safely (no initfs reflashing). Behaviour could be controlled through an /etc file, and if someone could write a control pannel applet it would be perfect.
I finally have managed to install scratchbox (thanks to a new hard disk), so I'm joining in.

1. I don't recall expressing such anger.

2. I do not "love" 'test/sample programs of alsa-lib'

This is my first attempt to write any code for the device. I've spent the last three weeks trying to figure out why other people are able to write code that produces sound and yet my efforts to compile and run the simplest code I can find have me completely stumped.

3. I personally do not know whethor this is a kernel bug or is instead something simple in the sample code that I do not understand.

4. No ... I have no idea of what 'ioctl' is needed. I do not understand why one simple program does not work.

At one point, I managed to get sound from the headphone jack while struggling with alsa-lib in Mer, but not from the internal speaker. I have not been able to figure out what it was that made it work that time, and have yet to be able even to reproduce that.

I've been trying to get assistance from the alsa-devel and pkg-alsa-devel mailing lists, but have not yet succeeded.

I was really hoping that somebody would look at the report and say 'oh, all you need to do is use ____ instead of "default"'.

I'm not trying to express anger. I'm trying to find out what I'm doing wrong.

If somebody could please direct me to the appropriate place for asking my question, I would be most grateful.

I replied to 2 postings, to yours I didn't mention love or anger, just a guess at what you might need to look at, not pretending to be a Linux kernel or audio expert.

Frank

I'm hoping that something that drastic is not required. However, I am interested in figuring out how to do all of that.
For today, it is simply over my head. :-(

I am trying to peruse the forums until I find my way, as time permits.

Bickering solves nothing.

After setting up these packages in my jaunty chroot ( from http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=27735 ), and much thrashing (log lost), I managed to get pcm.c working both in jaunty and in diablo:
libpci3 (1:3.0.0-4ubuntu8) ...
lsof (4.78.dfsg.1-4) ...
pciutils (1:3.0.0-4ubuntu8) ...
linux-sound-base (1.0.18.dfsg-1ubuntu8) ...
alsa-base (1.0.18.dfsg-1ubuntu8) ...
alsa-utils (1.0.18-1ubuntu11) ...
I'm not exactly sure if that's what fixed it or if it was something I did via diablo.
So ... based on this new evidence, I don't think it's the kernel or the driver.

While I'm not sure what pcm.c is. Nor what it's for. I do appreciate the work you've done!
Now, could someone explain to me what pcm.c is for?

[1|user@Nokia-N810-43-7|~/alsa-lib-1.0.14sa/test]cat pcm.c
/*
* This small demo sends a simple sinusoidal wave to your speakers.
*/
......
[1|user@Nokia-N810-43-7|~/alsa-lib-1.0.14sa/test]./pcm --help
Usage: pcm [OPTION]... [FILE]...
-h,--help help
-D,--device playback device
-r,--rate stream rate in Hz
-c,--channels count of channels in stream
-f,--frequency sine wave frequency in Hz
-b,--buffer ring buffer size in us
-p,--period period size in us
-m,--method transfer method
-o,--format sample format
-v,--verbose show the PCM setup parameters

Recognized sample formats are: S8 U8 S16_LE S16_BE U16_LE U16_BE S24_LE S24_BE U24_LE U24_BE S32_LE S32_BE U32_LE U32_BE FLOAT_LE FLOAT_BE FLOAT64_LE FLOAT64_BE IEC958_SUBFRAME_LE IEC958_SUBFRAME_BE MU_LAW A_LAW IMA_ADPCM MPEG GSM SPECIAL S24_3LE S24_3BE U24_3LE U24_3BE S20_3LE S20_3BE U20_3LE U20_3BE S18_3LE S18_3BE U18_3LE
Recognized transfer methods are: write write_and_poll async async_direct direct_interleaved direct_noninterleaved direct_write

[1|user@Nokia-N810-43-7|~/alsa-lib-1.0.14sa/test]./pcm
Playback device is plughw:0,0
Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
Using transfer method: write
Playback open error: Inappropriate ioctl for device

[1|user@Nokia-N810-43-7|~/alsa-lib-1.0.14sa/test]./pcm -D default
Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
Using transfer method: write

I'm not sure why I get the ioctl error if I leave out the "-D default" ...

I'm sorry I didn't mean to hijack the thread ... it's off topic.

Going back to our main theme, could someone post an unmodified initfs/linuxrc file?
I modified mine long ago and I want a fresh one to make sure the changes are done right.