Sound/Audio problems on a hard disk install.

[lothario]

I have an old Compaq DeskPro XL 5133 computer.
It has "Compaq Integrated Audio" on DMA 1 at address 530.
It used to have Windows 98 and the audio (speakers and mic) worked fine.
I wiped out Windows 98 from the hard disk.

I just finished doing a Knoppix hard disk intall and
I tried to use Audacity to check the sound.

When I start Audacity, I get the message:
"There was an error initializing the audio i/o layer.
You will not be able to play or record audio.
Error: Host Error"

So I tried to configure the audio with "/usr/sbin/sndconfig"
But sndconfig says:
"You don't seem to be running a kernel with modular sound enabled.
(soundcore.o was not found in the module search path).
To use sndconfig you must be running a kernel with modular
sound, such as the kernel shipped with Debian GNU/Linux
or a 2,2 kernel and sound must be compiled as modules."

So I did a "uname -a" and it says that I have
Linux 2.6.6
And (I understand that) the Knoppix hard disk install is Debian.

So I added the "soundcore" to "/etc/modules-2.6.6" and did a reboot.
Now the "soundcore" module loads at boot time without any (visible) problems.

But Audacity and sndconfig still give the same messages.
I don't know what to do. Have I done the right things so far?

Please help.