i think andrew forgot to post to the list, i forward his answer

I actually found an answer in the end in the form of:

sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel

I would never have guessed it, and I'm not sure if it's reliant on one or more of the packages I installed, however it seems to work on a fresh reboot, so it works for me. I can now start the patch, with audio, with a relatively simple...

pd-extended -open pd/test-tones.pd -alsa -nogui

I also had to add my user to the 'audio' group, but I had done that when I sent my first email.

Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 23:39:00 +0200 Subject: Re: [PD] Audio on Ubuntu Server edition From: pyfave@gmail.com To: jbturgid@hotmail.com

ubuntu server

check for security limits perhaps default account is more limited than on desktop?