Sorry in advance if this is not a debian question, but I know diffrent distributions have slightly diffrent methods.
I'm trying to get sound to work. I tried alsaconf, this reports that modules_name are missing
ie modules_sb16 etc.

I've used apt-get to install alsa modules, however it doesn't have the modules for my kernel (2.6.16). So I tried to install from source, this tells me that alsa is installed from the kernel in my system, so I can't do it that way.

My only thought is that I need to check something in the kernel when I installed it, if so does anyone known what? Thanks

If alsa is already in the kernel which it should be if it is a precompiled debian one. Then the alsa-utils package and its dependencies will be all you need. Once it is installed run alsamixer as root to change the master volume from 0 and you should be set to go.

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try.

However I suspect it's more than volume levels, as when I try to play sounds it gives an error saying something along the lines of "unable to play no output detected", and yes i have got a card and it's shown when I grep pci audio. That's why I suspect I have to check something when you compile your kernel