LinuxQuestions.org - Sound Drivers needed for Ubuntu

My first post. 100716
OK I love Linux for its simplicity of loading and getting on with the job. If I had come to computers earlier in my life I would be savvier at using command line stuff which I seldom do in my IT business with Windows mainly.
Ubuntu is how I have travelled along with my Linux adventures and always in the hope that they will have sorted out the sound drivers for whichever motherboard I endeavour to get up and running. I have lots of old computers in my graveyard and I often put on Ubuntu to see if it will get around the problems of the sound drivers. So far I have had little success at all even with the new 10.04 version of Ubuntu.
Hence my grip is that Ubuntu cannot yet detect the onboard sound card chip and I don’t know how to proceed from this point.
One more point is that I cannot load my now 12 months old Kyocera FS-1300D printer onto Ubuntu. I have delved into some obscure Kyocera file that is needed to modify Ubuntu, but I could not get it going. I was sad and grumpy when 10.04 did not have the drivers for my wonderful FS-1300D now in it.
If I was younger (now 70) I would become an expert on Linux servers, as this is an area that I think the Linux OS could make great strides in the IT world.
Any ideas or cheat sheets would be very much appreciated by me at least and maybe by some older people who only want to browse the net and receive and reply to email.
Regards to all Henry 100716 at 2040 hours
New Zealand