I recently updated my main Linux machine to Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) because I’m not happy with Canonical’s “unity” strategy and trying to kill Gnome 2.x outright instead of fixing what’s wrong with it.

Most stuff worked well out of the box, but somehow the flash plugin could no longer play sounds.

A post on the Linux Mint forums was especially helpful in fixing this issue. As the “root” user, issue the following command:

touch /etc/asound.conf

Then, open the above file in your favourite text editor (mine’s “emacs”) and add the following lines:

pcm.pulse {
    type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
    type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
    type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
    type pulse
}

Save the file and reboot your system and from then on, the flash plugin in Firefox / Chrome / what have you should be able to play sound again.