And I wonder why it's never any sound problems in Gnome in any Ubuntu version I have tryed in this PC so far? They must have better hardvare detection in some way then KDE 4 in general.
If you take any software package like ABC x.y.z, and you see y or z is a double digit number, then you know they have been making it a stable, mature product. GNOME 2 was like this. KDE 4 has had problems since day one and for some reason some of the bugs appear and disappear from time to time.
If you are getting tired of fighting this, go where things work you.
I recently wanted to try a dock. After looking around a little, I picked one and installed it. It fought me at every turn. I got rid of it and was going to quit, but tried another one out of frustration. It worked right away and without a fight. It was night and day. Both were highly rated. I can't explain it.