Couple of proplems after switching to Gnome

[fannymites]

I have just installed Gnome display manager and set it as default display manager but now I'm having a couple of problems.
Firstly, I'm not getting any sound out of the speakers at all and I'm not sure what I need to do to configure it. Sound was working fine in KDE.
Secondly, after the login screen, as Gnome is loading in I'm getting about 8 boxes popping up, all
saying the same error message -

Error activating XKB configuration.
Probably internal X server problem.

X server version data:
The XFree86 Project, Inc
40300001
You are using XFree 4.3.0.
There are known problems with complex XKB configurations.
Try using simpler configuration or a newer version of the XFree software.
If you report this situation as a bug, please include:
- The result of xprop -root | grep XKB
- The result of gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/xkb

If I just close the boxes, everything seems to be working ok and the result of the gconftool thing is

layouts = [uk]
 model = microsoftinet
 overrideSettings = false
 options = []

Should I set the overideSettings to true?
I can't do the xprop thing cos I can't find out how to get that vertical line symbol.

[Edit] I forgot to add, this is a hard drive install using the Debian old installer way.

[eon]

I don't know if an English (UK) keyboard is identical to a US one but on my keyboard the symbol
"|" you are looking for is directly under the backspace key, last key in that row to the right and is produced by holding down shift and that key. "|"

[fannymites]

No, on mine it's at the very far left and just below the escape key.
It's a single key with 3 different symbols on it, I just don't know what I have to do to get that symbol.
Just pressing the key gives me ` and holding shift gives me this ¬