on the desktop of 10.04 there

You don't need sudo to run the volume control. Not only is sudo not necessary it is the wrong command to run GUI apps with elevated access. sudo is ONLY for command line commands like apt-get, cp, ln, mv etc. gksu and kdesu is for running GUI apps. Using sudo can and will bork your system due to it not setting up the environment right and screwing file permissions.

if you press ALT+F2 and type:
gnome-mixer
then wait it should offer some good looking suggestions.

This will then be run as USER as it should be. Don't launch everything with sudo or you will damage your install

actionparnsip i think there is a problem with your directions, in 10.04 (what Greg states he is using)

gnome-mixer
gnome-mixer: command not found

did you not get any apps suggested?

 no . ~ but i search the web found the three line command for 9.10 it worked . but when i try to get ride of the indicator applet for mail, it removes the volume control also.
 this is what i ran .

Open the Terminal.
Once the Terminal window opens, enter the following command at the prompt:
gconftool - -recursive-unset /apps/panel
(Remember: There should be no spaces between the two dashes before shutdown.)
Then enter the next command:
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
And enter one more command:
pkill gnome-panel

this solve my problem . but i disk like the mail applet will have to wait to see if this changes later on .

I think actionparsnip is referring to the following volume control command:

gnome-alsamixer

$ aptitude search mixer | grep gnome
i gnome-alsamixer - ALSA sound mixer for GNOME
$

You might need to install it first using these commands:

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude install gnome-alsamixer

those are for advance settings what i did restored the control . that is all i needed .

thank you all !