[writing on my thinkpad 600 running Gnome 2.4 on MDK 10]
Sound works great for me using alsa 1.02 -> open a console as root, use alsaconf, check for non-pnp devices: the chipset should be cs4236 - in case the sound would be found but not configured fully, edit /etc/modules.conf and check if interrupts, dma, port addresses etc. are correct: you should get the correct values from the (dos....) utility PS2.exe from IBM.
Of course you should first of all check in the BIOS if sound is enabled! :)
ciao
M.