Following suit of the old OSS Maestro driver, snd-es1968 now detects an AC97 codex on my Dman2044 card. One problem--it aint got one! This card is not yet supported in the alsa system. snd-es1968 used to complain about the non-existant AC97 and not load. The 1968 is not listed under /proc/asound/cards and XMMS will play, quite silently.