ARTS was working, now broken

[kreed]

My audio was fine, except that I could no get sound in tvtime (but that's another thread). In trying to fix that, I think I broke aRts.
I can play most audio fine (e.g., mplayer, noatun), but my KDE window events no longer play. So, for example, the annoying default sounds for creating and closing a window are no longer playing. If I go to the KDE control center to Sound & Multimedia/Sound Server and test a sound, it plays fine. But if I go to System Notifications and "Play a Sound," I get nothing. I am a terrible noob when it comes to sound (I am no audiophile;if I get sound out of my $10 speakers, I am happy).

Any thoughts on what to check? Relevant system info looks like this:

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uname -a
Linux 2.4.22-gentoo-r7 #8 Fri Apr 2 23:10:03 EST 2004 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

=================================================
# lsmod
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
tuner 10344 1 (autoclean)
tvaudio 13800 0 (autoclean) (unused)
msp3400 18080 1 (autoclean)
bttv 96800 0
snd-pcm-oss 39108 0
snd-mixer-oss 13200 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-intel8x0 19716 1 (autoclean)
snd-pcm 64900 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-ac97-codec 43032 0 (autoclean) [snd-intel8x0]
snd-page-alloc 6100 0 (autoclean) [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 3680 0 (autoclean) [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi 14112 0 (autoclean) [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-oss 27360 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 3776 0 [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 40208 2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-timer 15396 0 [snd-pcm snd-seq]
snd-seq-device 4176 0 [snd-rawmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq]
snd 33860 1 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-pc
m snd-ac97-codec snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-
seq snd-timer snd-seq-device]
soundcore 4228 6 [bttv snd]
rtc 7176 0 (autoclean)
nvidia 1631008 11

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# cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (different version?) (rev 193).
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xd8000000 [0xdbffffff].
Bus 0, device 5, function 0:
Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce MultiMedia audio [Via VT82C686B] (rev 162).
IRQ 5.
Master Capable. No bursts. Min Gnt=1.Max Lat=12.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe2000000 [0xe207ffff].
Bus 0, device 6, function 0:
Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AC97 Audio Controler (MCP) (rev 161).
IRQ 9.
Master Capable. No bursts. Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=5.
I/O at 0xd000 [0xd0ff].
I/O at 0xd400 [0xd47f].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe2087000 [0xe2087fff].
Bus 1, device 7, function 0:
Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 17).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=16.Max Lat=40.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdc000000 [0xdc000fff].
Bus 1, device 7, function 1:
Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 17).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=4.Max Lat=255.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xdc001000 [0xdc001fff].

=================================================

bash-2.05b$ cat /etc/modules.d/alsa
# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v 1.1 2003/08/05 21:07:55 johnm Exp $

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore

## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss