Gigafast 802.11b wireless card and Intel 865PERL MB sound

Trying to enable both to have a fully functional Knoppix system.
First there appears not to be any support for either of these in K3.4.
Can't find INTEL linux driver for onboard sound so out of luck there I guess...real bummer. (Tried alsa, not good) Board is fairly common and K3.4 apparently knows how to enable the board's Hyperthreading.. so where is the sound support...? (have not tried the onboard LAN yet)

Wireless card is another matter. Card is WF721-AEX. Vendor provides drivers for RedHAt 7 and 9 (2.4.14+ I think) and source for recompiling.
Instructions say to modify makefile macros. I have not the slightest idea what to modify them to. They are currently:
KERNELRELEASE=$(shell uname -r) do I make it $(Knoppix -r)?? or $(2.4.24 Knoppix -r) or what?
IO_FLAGS = RTL_IO_MAP --no idea what to do here, alt appears to be RTL_MEM_MAP....?
ENDIAN_FLAGS = RTL_LITTLE_INDIAN (presume BIG is alternative but what determins which?)
OP_MODE_FLAGS = RTL_ACT_AS_STA (option is presumed to be *AS_AP but what detemines the setting? AP ==access point? STS == Station (client??)) geeeze.
DRV_FLAGS = (get this) -D$(IO_FLAGS) -D$(ENDIAN_FLAGS) -D$(OP_MODE_FLAGS) -DRTL8180_DRV_ON_PC -DENABLE_DBG_PRINT

Then Gigafast says "check pci module initialization and system call interfaces in the provided source code" right and oh....modify the script files I can probably handle if I can find <Set wireless lan MIBs>

Most of this is a mystery to a non UNIX/LINUX person who is not steeped in wireless internals..Any help would be appreciated.

Also is this the natural/normal way a general user must add support to his linux system?? If so it absolutely sucks.