I am running Sarge on a Dell CpxH500. I installed using debian-installer. My sound works but I cannot control the volume (I at least need to mute it). According to BIOS, I have an ESS Maestro 2E. discover reports "ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E". I've tried installing alsa, but it fails on boot. I am using GNOME, and I am using whatever volume control is built into that (the one in the top panel). Does anyone know how to fix this?

Also, I have a DWL-650, revision unknown, and I am completely lost as to how to get it working. According discover, it is a "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC". Is driverloader the only way to get this working? Will ndiswrapper work? I am hoping to be able to find sarge-specific info on this.

BTW, my kernel is the debian stock 2.4.27-1-386.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.