[nzlug] Aureal vortex sound card?

[Peter]

I have a via box with crap on-board sound, and precious little space to put much else in. However i dug in the junkbox and found a couple of Aureal vortex cards circa 2000 ( au8810 chip) I recall have great 2ch sound, and best of all are tiny.

Running Deb sarge which ignored the card. Tried a few live distros, and got the furthest with Ubuntu 5.4, which recognised the card but still didnt work.

I know nothing about sound, but google suggested alsa, a driver at 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aureal and a couple suggestions to use another card.

Is it worth perserving with, or else its possible a SB5.1 
(http://c1com.co.nz/shop/step1.php?number=8265) might just fit, with some surgery. SB live is too wide as well as long.

TIA

Peter