sound problems with on-board realtek chip

Hi everyone!
Please help me with my problem which I have been trying to solve for some days.
I'm relatively new to Linux so take it easy on me.
I have a Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3 Gigabyte motherboard with an onboard Realtek ALC883 CODEC chip. On my Mepis 64 (kernel 2.6.15-27)this chip is not detected (no entries in lspci for sound or in hal-device-manager) I have no mixer appearing in kmix, no sliders, etc. I deintalled/installed everything related to mixers, sound configuration but in vain. On Windows I have no problems as I had no problems with SimplyMepis 6.0rc2-i386. I have an AMD 3800+ 64bit processor, if that is of any help.PLEASE give me a sollution 'cause I'm desperate. I have to work on windows and I hate it.
thanks in advance

try to compile and install the latest version of alsa, it might have support for your particular chipset. if the latest alsa does not detect it then i have no idea what more you can do.

OK, a thousand thanks for the advice. I will do that. Ithought it to be the sollution but I wanted other opinions too from the more experienced ones out there. Thanks again

I've installed alsa again with everything in it - utils, drivers, modules,etc. but I still have the problem. Kmix says no mixers foundand when I run alsamixer from console it says alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory. lsmod output is Module Size Used by
fglrx 445940 8
rfcomm 35360 0
l2cap 22784 5 rfcomm
bluetooth 45188 4 rfcomm,l2cap
ppdev 8584 0
video 16776 0
thermal 13708 0
tc1100_wmi 7432 0
sony_acpi 5908 0
pcc_acpi 14080 0
hotkey 11464 0
fan 5000 0
dev_acpi 12932 0
container 4864 0
button 7072 0
acpi_sbs 22680 0
battery 10120 1 acpi_sbs
i2c_acpi_ec 5888 1 acpi_sbs
i2c_core 19712 1 i2c_acpi_ec
ac 5512 1 acpi_sbs
ndiswrapper 198208 0
ipv6 248960 10
cpufreq_userspace 7904 0
cpufreq_powersave 2944 0
cpufreq_ondemand 8104 0
freq_table 5056 0
processor 24104 1 thermal
af_packet 19852 2
dm_mod 47816 1
usblp 12928 0
md_mod 60664 0
parport_pc 33904 1
lp 11712 0
via_rhine 22148 0
shpchp 42528 0
pci_hotplug 26896 1 shpchp
parport 35084 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
mii 6016 1 via_rhine
serio_raw 7428 0
ohci1394 30412 0
psmouse 34820 0
pcspkr 3080 0
floppy 63496 0
ohci_hcd 19076 0
evdev 10880 1

It seems it does not load any sound modules.
on the other hand I found my onboard device in hal-device-manager.
if it is of any help, here is the lspci output:
0000:00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a1)
0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus (rev a2)
0000:00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a2)
0000:00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a1)
0000:00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a2)
0000:00:04.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE (rev a1)
0000:00:06.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:06.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP55 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
0000:00:0f.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
0000:01:07.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105 [Rhine-III] (rev 8b)
0000:01:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
0000:02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV410 [Radeon X700 Pro (PCIE)]
0000:02:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV410 [Radeon X700 Pro (PCIE)] Secondary

pleas tell me what to do in order to get my sound working (I am considering buying a sound card)but I have other priorities for the moment. Thanks