Realtek sound driver query

[Chris Makepeace]

I am a Linux distro fiddler who is trying to settle down...

Just installed PC-BSD and the ".../dev/dsp could not be opened (no
such file or directory)" error appeared.  "Mixer cannot be found",
says the little panel icon.

Sound is supposed to come via an integrated Realtek ACL883 chip on the
P965 main board.  Realtek themselves have drivers for "Linux (2.4 and
2.6)" and also "RHEL4 update 4".  These are tar.bz files; dare I
inflict them on my new setup?  I dread trying to hack them to fit it.

Most other searches end up with Windows drivers only.