Sound and vision problems

[Andy Jarvis]

Post-install my main issues were, as with many other users, no sound
(fixed by adjusting the sliders on the sound mixer) and a restriction to
1024 x 768. However after a day's "fiddling around", I can no longer
access system sounds which were previously working. I get the following
message when I try to play a sound sample a simple in the desktop
preferences sound tool: The sound file for this event does not exist.
You may want to install the gnome-audio package
for a set of default sounds. This applies to system and user interface
events. Any suggestions? Where do I find the gnome-audio package?

The problem with the display settings is more complex. As my graphics
card is an ATI Radion 8500, I tried to install the fglrx driver with all
it's accompanying fun and games. I followed the advice of the Wiki and
installed the linux-restricted package. Now xresprobe shows the 1280 x
1084 resolution I want but I still cannot use it. When I now attempt to
access the screen resolution tool, I see the following error: The X
Server does not support the XRandR extension.  Runtime resolution
changes to the display size are not available. I have therefore no idea
how to move forward from here. As a relative newcomer to Linux I have to
say: Help!

Thanks,
Andy.