open a terminal and run

locate gstreamer | less

and see if you have gstreamer installed.

if you dont, then run

apt-get install gstreamer

Thank you for your prompt answer. Needs more info about what I should look for in the response to the locate gstreamer command. The response starts like this: /var/cache/apt/archives/totem-gstreamer_2.18.1-0ubuntu3_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgstreamer0.10-0_0.10.12-0ubuntu2_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-alsa_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-x_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-tools_0.10.12-0ubuntu2_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps_0.10.12-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-alsa.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-alsa.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-esd.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-esd.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-base.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good.postrm /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good.prerm /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-tools.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-tools.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-x.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-x.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0.postrm /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0.shlibs /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer0.10-0.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer0.10-0.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer0.10-0.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgstreamer0.10-0.postrm : and goes on for two more screens. The command apt-get install gstreamer returns: E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied) E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root? Again, thanks for your suggestions.

the output you posted from 'locate gstreamer | less' showed some promise that you have it installed, however, i should have put a grep pipe in that command. try this...

locate gstreamer | grep etc/gconf | less

and see if there are any gstreamer configuration files. if there are, then its installed.

also, apt-get wont work if you are not root. you need to either su to root or run it with the sudo command.

another thing you might want to check is to see if your sound card is even being detected.

lspci

that will display all hardware devices connected to the computer. see if there is anything that resembles your sound card.

Thank you for your assistance. Yet, no cigars. I ran the command you suggested. The get-install from the root returns the same. The lspci command shows that the sound card is detected. Here are the returns: ahro@ahro-laptop://$ cd /; ls bin dev initrd lib mnt root sys var boot etc initrd.img lost+found opt sbin tmp vmlinuz cdrom home initrd.img.old media proc srv usr vmlinuz.old ahro@ahro-laptop:/$ apt-get install gstreamer E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied) E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root? ahro@ahro-laptop:/$ cd root ahro@ahro-laptop:/root$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03) 00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02) 00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02) 00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02) 00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) 00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01) 00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 12) 01:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio] (rev 12) ahro@ahro-laptop:/root$ Looking forward to more suggestions. Thank you.

I ran the apt-get command as follows:
ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install gstreamer
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package gstreamer
ahro@ahro-laptop:~$

no, run the apt-get command from a root level account, not the root directory.

run this...

sudo apt-get install gstreamer

you will be prompted for the root password, type it in and hit enter.

also, when you make a post, make sure to have "Automatically convert carriage returns to HTML line breaks". that check box is right above the "Submit Post" button.

i find that hard to believe that it cant be found. its there :/

okay, try this.

System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager

it will prompt you for a password, type it in and hit enter. then do a search for gstreamer in there. there should be a few that show up, just select the basic gstreamer package, the one without any of the extra stuff after the name. it might be something like gstreamer.10 or something like that. select it and hit apply. let it install and you should be good to go.

Thanks for your patience. Synaptic Package Manager
lists several 'flavors' of gstreamer0.10 pluggins,
all of which have a 'flavor' name appended to it.
There are no gstreamer0.10 only option.
Arbitrarily, I chose to re-apply gstreamer0.10-alsa.
To no avail. I still get the error message:

The volume control did not find any elements
and/or devices to control.
This means either that you don't have the right
GStreamer plugins installed,
or that you don't have a sound card configured.

Any more tricks in your bag?

Thank you very much.

try running alsactl to configure alsa with your sound card.

This is beyond me.

From which directory, with which alsactl parameters
and which command should I use?
I checked the Alsa website:
the Neomagic sound card's code is snd-sn256.
Here is what I tried:

ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ alsactl restore snd-nm256
alsactl: load_state:1340: Cannot find soundcard 'snd-nm256'...

ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ alsactl restore snd-card-nm256
alsactl: load_state:1340: Cannot find soundcard 'snd-card-nm256'...

ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ alsactl --file /etc/asound.names restore snd-nm256
alsactl: load_state:1340: Cannot find soundcard 'snd-nm256'...

ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ alsactl --file /var/lib/alsa/asound.state store snd-nm256
alsactl: save_state:1267: Cannot find soundcard 'snd-nm256'...

ahro@ahro-laptop:~$ modinfo soundcore
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/kernel/sound/soundcore.ko
alias: char-major-14-*
license: GPL
author: Alan Cox
description: Core sound module
srcversion: 45750F13477CBA5B6F36F46
depends:
vermagic: 2.6.20-15-generic SMP mod_unload 586


Again, much obliged for your help.