Notebook sound ES1878 does not work (alsa instead?)

Hi.
The notebook is an Olivetti Xtrema 426s, PII 266 with ES1878
sound onboard.
Knoppix doesn't configure the soundcard.
I can load the ES1868 or SB driver (both use sb.o) with sndconfig or
manually with modprobe, but all I get is stuttering sound.
Sounds like some DMA problem.
The soundcard uses port 220, irq7 or 5, dma 0 or 1. I tried several
combinations, all the same.
I remember that I always had problems with the kernel sound
drivers, especially on redhat based distributions. That's the reason
why I use alsa, because the soundcard works fine with alsa.
Is it possible to integrate alsa in knoppix? Did someone already try
this out?

p.s. testet with Knoppix 3.1 und 3.2