CMI8330 sound board?

 I've sat here in front of the computer now for three days trying to get this 
card to work.

I either get 'no /dev/dsp' or 'no /dev/xxx/pcmC0D0p' in any thing I try.

I do find that I have a /pcmC0D1p', and /dev/dsp seems to come and go at 
random.

What creates /dev/dsp?  Some times it is there, I can see it with 'ls' and I'm 
*STILL* told that doesn't exists!  I'm doing this as root so permsions should 
not be the problem, I hope.

I think there is a clue in that this is a full duplex card, and it has some 
thing to do with the minor-version numbers, but I don't know what:

This is the output from a couple of 'cat procs' in the /dev/asound directory:

Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v0.9.0rc2 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux me 2.4.19-gentoo-r7 #1 Sun Sep 1 20:31:04 EDT 2002 i586
Config options: 0

Installed drivers: 
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config: 
CMI8330/C3D at 0x534, irq 11, dma 0

Audio devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
[WHAT CONFIG?  WHERE???]

Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Timers:
7: system timer

Mixers:
  0: mixer00
  0: [0- 0]: ctl
 17: [0- 1]: digital audio playback
 24: [0- 0]: digital audio capture
 33:       : timer

I've read the 'Desktop Install Sound' section so many times it is starting to 
show up in my nightmares.  There are no indications of errors when I boot or 
in dmesg.  There are pushing 100+ messages on sound problems in 'gentoo' so 
at least I don't feel alone, just very frustrated.  Every solution I tried 
from those messages made no change or just chagned the error message I got.

I know the hardware works, as it worked ok with Mandrake 8.1/alsa-0.5.

I've run out of ideas or messages that seem relevant?

HELP!