Getting an On-board ESS 1878 Sound Card Working In Slackware 8.1

[Richard Wells]

What is required to get this sound card working with Linux? I am running
Kernel 2.4.19 and I have compiled every possible sound card as modules. Do I
need to modprobe the ESS sound cards to see if one of them responds? Is
there any kind of sound configuration utility to run or does anyone have a
script to do this? Is alsa the only way to go here or will OSS drivers work?
I have a lot to learn here so please forgive the rambling questions.

Thanks in advance for any help.