Hey there, having a few problems configuring the sound card.

Having successfully installed gentoo for the first time I'm doing okay, with a bit of work managed to configure X and KDE/Fluxbox so the system is fairly useable. The only trouble I'm left with is configuring the sound card - said to be a Realtek AC97

The laptop itself I'm using is the one below:
http://www.packardbell.co.uk/product...S00101-52.html

lsmod currently returns absolutely nothing, indicating that not a single kernel module is currently loaded (I find that quite odd, but everything else appears to be working okay at this time). I had recompiled the kernel a few times to add support for various things, so thats probably why.

I downloaded a linux driver for this and it failed to compile. /proc/asound/cards gives the output:

ICH4 - Intel ICH6
Intel ICH6 with unknown codec at 0xb0040800, irq 9

I hear that I'm supposed to use something called alsa. I emerged alsa to install it, but aren't really too sure what to do from there.

Can anyone help out or give me a decent starting point? If theres any key info I've missed let me know =)

you should emerge alsa-utils alsa-libs alsa-tools

And you should include alsa module snd_hda_intel while compiling kernel.
My laptop is asus so I need a bit more:
in my /etc/modules.d/alsa
write a line:
options snd-hda-intel model=z71v position_fix=1
for my headphone jack to work
modules-update
modprobe snd_hda_intel
and wualia sound works fine

I'm on it. Alsaconf also couldnt configure sound card, said it was unsupported.

Hmm, I thought I did. Will have a look.

okay, will have a go at that if it turns out I have compiled in the alsa module.

Well, everything for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture is ticked. I'm having a problem finding an option for snd-hda-intel though? I had ticked one for:

Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller

Is there anything else I'm missing?

EDIT - Another slightly weird thing is that in /sys/ there is a folder called snd_intel8x0. Is this likely to be a really simple configuration problem?

I took ALSA support out the kernel, and then compiled and installed alsa-driver thinking that would fix it (apparently there are problems with these drivers in the 2.6.16 kernel)

When typing modprobe snd_hda_intel though, I now get:

WARNING: Error inserting snd_page_alloc(/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r12/kernel/sound/acore/snd-page-alloc.ko);

and a few similar warnings. Anyone know why? =/ =(

(EDIT - Should probably combine all of these into one post, but the bumps are always helpful :P)

unmerge alsa-driver
open you kernel config ( probobly /usr/src/`uname -r`/.config
and check this line CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m
recompile your kernel.
that should do it.