I have never gotten esdcat, esdplay etc. to work on my 330 MHz PowerPC G3 iMac (256 M RAM).
I run OS 10.1.2 and OS 9.2.2.
I have always installed esd with fink.
On the iMac, esd starts up with the distinctive esd starting sounds, but is unavailable. This is the error I get when I use...