> (Is /dev/sound needed now that there is /dev/audioctl?)

The problem is that there are three separate interfaces here, with
different requirements:

1) There's the Sun interface, which uses /dev/audio (which resets on
   every open) for I/O and /dev/audioctl to frob the mixer.  They have
   to be separate devices, because you may have a separate program
   (e.g. gaintool) to frob the mixer.

2) There's the OSS interface, which wants the I/O device to not reset
   on each open (and in fact some applications *require* this), so we
   have /dev/sound for that purpose.  It also has a different mixer
   mechanism using /dev/mixer.

3) There's our own mixer interface, which uses /dev/mixer.

It's possible that /dev/audioctl and /dev/mixer could be combined, but
/dev/audio and /dev/sound really do need to be separate devices.