Apologies to anyone who read this in the last hour or so. I had been using my HD installation, which has a recompiled kernel and sound, but I just rebooted from the 3.2 CD again to check the facts.

The boot process/loaded modules are exactly as zyx4321 describes. But then I open alsamixer and see the PCM and Centre channels unmuted and turned up. I change this from Centre to Surround and <ESC> to quit alsamixer. Then I have sound e.g. I can mount my HD and play an mp3 file using mpg123. Quality seems OK, but volume is not real powerful. Need mixer channels turned up to 75% or so to get good volume in headphones.

M/B: Asus P4P800-VM
Sound chip: AD1980 (AC97)

Sorry zyx4321 - if that doesn't work I am out of ideas. Note there is a lengthy thread on AC97 sound elsewhere in this forum.

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2831

You can also Google on your sound chip type. Note AD=Analog Devices, which may get more hits.

Later:It looks like the AD1980/1985 devices have recently made it into the ALSA soundcard matrix http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/. Following the links there gives more information.