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VIA VT8233A is a on-board audio device. It uses AC'97 codec. It has been created in ~2002 (?) so it won't work with Debian Woody. You have to recompile the kernel.
Debian Sarge and Mandrake LE2005 both install it by default and it works from the beginning (remember to use 'linux26' flavor in Sarge). Mandrake uses ALSA, while Debian uses OSS (AFAIK). In Mandrake, you have to configure alsamixer, to unmute your chip.
I still couldn't make it work in Woody. The OSS driver in Woody (via82cxxxx) gives me strange errors / exceptions. It does, however, work flawlessly in Sarge.
NOTE: 8233 is supposed to work in Woody. 8233A, however, does not. 8235 and 8237 should work in Sarge and/or Mandrake, but I don't have them so I can't test them in Woody. There surely is a way to get by with a 2.2 or 2.4 kernel, but I haven't figured it out yet. The only reason you should use an older kernel is if you have an old PC. Otherwise, go with 2.6.*.
IMHO, on-board devices aren't as useful as they may seem. If you have a choice, go with a PCI sound card.
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