Support at OSS wrote to Gan Starling:

>>> The basic problem with NetBSD is that unlike FreeBSD 
>>> they use something called "devaudio" which is Sun's 
>>> Audio API and apps under the ports section for NetBSD 
>>> are modified from their original design to use devaudio. 
>>> ALL open source apps are written with the OSS API in 
>>> mind as they are originally developed for Linux or 
>>> FreeBSD which use the OSS API. 
>>> 
>>> So when you try to run apps under NetBSD, you have to 
>>> recompile them from source. The configure stage for 
>>> all audio apps will detect the OSS API if soundcard.h 
>>> is found in /usr/include/sys or /usr/include/machine 
>>> 
>>> Once you recompile these apps OSS audio works just fine.  
>>> 
>>> best regards
>>> Dev Mazumdar

Gan Starling replied (in part) to Support at OSS:

>>...And also, I did a complete pkg_delete, make clean, make
>>and make install of /usr/pkgsrc/audio/audacity. All went
>>without any errors. But audacity still will not play.  Still
>>gives the same error for /dev/sound as before. 
>>
>>What to do now? OSS works fine by iteslf. The OSS CLI things
>>run fine. But ALL other audio apps fail with errors about
>>the mixer or /dev/sound. 
>>
>>Regards, 
>>
>>Gan

Support at OSS then replied: 

>For audacity, you should try to recompile audacity to use the
>FreeBSD audio defs on NetBSD. We have tried audacity on NetBSD
>and it works. Once again, you must not use any source from NetBSD
>ports collection because these are modified sources for NetBSD's audio.
>You must go and get the standard sources from the project's website
>and then compile them.
>
>best regards
>Dev Mazumdar

Gan Starling now asks of netbsd-help gurus:

What else in /usr/pkgsrc/audio/audacity (in KDE, and other apps) is
likely to be very especially modified for NetBSD in more than
just the audio? 

If I go out and download original tarballs (not modified for
NetBSD) like what Support at OSS is telling me to do, what else, 
besides just the audio, is likely to cause me more trouble than
it is worth?

Before I went and installed OSS (which was advertised as an
installation for NetBSD -- with its own web page of instructions
just for NetBSD) my audio stuff had used to play. It did not
record very well. But it would play. After installing OSS I
can both record and play...but only using the OSS CLI commands.
None of my record or audio from KDE or audacity now work at
all.

I will try to find and install audacity from original (non-NetBSD)
tarballs tonight, since it is small. I am scared to mess with KDE.

Does anybody else have experience with non-NetBSD package 
installtions for audio, or with OSS? Has ANYBODY gotten OSS to
work properly with other apps on NetBSD for i386?

I'm no kind of guru. Re-compiling my kernel is to date the
bravest step I have made. This adventure is starting to chip
away at my intrepetude.

Regards,

Gan Starling