Password and audio problems after a fresh installation

Question

I installed arch i686 on a friend's toshiba laptop. Now I list the problems I encountered:
1) - First of all, at the beginning of the installation process, i set a simple root password, a classic "123". Now when my friend wants to set his personal root password through the command "passwd", it requries at least 8 characters. Now my friend set an 8 characters password but he wants to set a password with only 4 charcaters.... How can he do?
2) - Evolution asks the old root password (the "123"), even if my friend changed it with a new 8 characters password.
3) - The audio seems to work fine but when he opens skype all is muted (even with alsamixer controls at hightest volume). Also if he closes skype the audio remains stll silent. So he needs to reboot to restore the normal situation.
If someone can interest here there is the result of lsmod|grep '^snd' command:
snd_seq_oss 29696 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6004 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 47856 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6016 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcsp 9228 0
snd_pcm_oss 36832 0
snd_mixer_oss 14132 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_intel8x0 28080 1
snd_intel8x0m 13088 0
snd_ac97_codec 96696 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m
snd_pcm 66936 5 snd_pcsp,snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 19132 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 51108 13 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcsp,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc 8124 3 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_pcm

Answer 1

1) just type it twice, "12341234". however, you should really set a proper root password instead and do daily work as a regular user with sudo access
2) maybe evolution isn't asking for root but for the gnome-keyring password, which you might have set to 123 earlier too?
3) sorry i don't use or skype or alsa