Earlier I posted a problem with rc.alsa in that I didn't
seem to have any alsa devices. To my astonishment I have
been struggling the sound configuration for years for
nothing.

Note that any error messages displayed in rc.xxx files
in /etc/rc.d will be invisible. I only found out about
error messages coming first from rc.pulseaudio, and later
rc.alsa. In either case, any error in the corresponding
config file will abort the function of the rc.xxx file.

In my experiments I found that pulseaudio served no
useful function to me. It was in the config file
for rc.alsa that my most recent problem arose.

I used what had previously worked as the config
file for rc.alsa /etc/asound.conf. It was an
error in that config file which gave rise to
the failure of rc.alsa.

It amazed me to find that without any /etc/asound.conf
rc.alsa finds a sound configuration that works. I guess
you only need the asound.conf file if the default for
your system is not what you want.

On a fresh install of Slack64 14.2 you get a
asound.conf file that invokes pulseaudio, but
it does not work on my system.