Thanks for the responses to my previous requests. Now for a few more
frivolous requests...

My stereo will soon be put to the common good of all my roommates, so
it's become very important that I get audio working on my new computer.
This system has an Ensoniq 97 card, which I've managed to get running
under 1.4.1 by backporting the EAP driver from -current [aside: I was
running a -current kernel with a 1.4.1 userland, but X was strangely not
enabling the MIT-SHM extension, and enlightenment kept crashing out].
But playback suffers from occasional popping sounds; it seems worse with
live music, though it's not exclusive to it. I get this regardless of
the type of file played (MP3, .au or .wav), and my CPU% is pretty low
(the machine isn't doing much, and this is a 400MHz Celeron). This
popping was occurring even when I was running the -current kernel.

    eap0 at pci0 dev 10 function 0: Ensoniq AudioPCI 97 (rev. 0x06)
    eap0: interrupting at irq 11
    eap0: Cirrus Logic CS4297 codec; headphone, 18 bit DAC, 18 bit ADC,
no 3D stereo
    audio0 at eap0: full duplex

I've verified it's not the speaks: my CD portable plays fine. Plus  this
hasn't happened the few times I've played CDs in Windows.

...which brings me to problem #2: I can't seem to play audio CDs.
xcdplayer and xmcd find the tracks, and look like they're playing, but
there's no sound. This sounded similar to Jared McNeill's complaint, but
his workaround doesn't work. This is with an Asus 50x ATAPI CD-ROM.

    pciide0 at pci0 dev 4 function 1: Intel 82371AB IDE controller
(PIIX4)
    pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
    pciide0: primary channel wired to compatibility mode
    [...]
    atapibus0 at pciide0 channel 1
    cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: <ASUS CD-S500/A, , V3.1H> type 5 cdrom
removable
    cd0: 32-bits data port
    cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 2

The media cable is connected between them, and they play fine under
Windows. And I've been able to rip off it with cdd despite the scary
warning that it doesn't recognize the drive.

...which brings me to problem #3: after being entranced by some of
WinAmp's cool skins at a recent party, I need to get xmms (the new
x11amp) up and running. OK, maybe it's not such a big problem :-) Has
anybody had any success with this? It wants threads and thread-safe X
libraries... I seem to remember the X Consortium had started a project
doing a thread-safe Xlib, but www.x.org's down right now.

I'm grateful for any responses. Once I have these essentials fixed, I'll
be able to start some real work  :-)