ALSA lib pcm.c:2144:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.default

I am using ubuntu Gutsy i386. I was trying to configure Ekiga softphone and I found out that the aoudio did not work. I tried running the softphone from terminal using 'sudo' and I saw the following two lines while detecting audio device:
ALSA lib pcm.c:2144:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.default
ALSA lib pcm_dsnoop.c:558:(snd_pcm_dsnoop_open) unable to open slave

Once i tried fesitval with ALSA. It did not work but festival worked with ESD. The output of aplay -l is:
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel ICH6]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ICH6 [Intel ICH6], device 4: Intel ICH - IEC958 [Intel ICH6 - IEC958]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Its on my laptop (ThinkPad T43p).
I went through the article here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HdaIntelSoundHowto but it looks like its meant for a different sound card.
Any help would be appreciated.