Diagnostic software

[David A. Cobb]

Running 7.10 Ubuntu, but that hardly matters for this question.

I'm having problems with my sound.  It isn't unusual, I've spent about 
75% of the time since going to Linux having problems with sound.
The base cause of my problems is having an nVidia box.  But even such 
silliness as plugging speakers into the wrong jack have bitten me.

The only software indication I've seen related to sound is a message 
during INIT and SHUTDOWN saying there's a mismatch in versions for 
saving the OSS settings.

But my real question is this: back in the day, I could get a program 
like Checkit that would test out my hardware.  I don't think Checkit 
knew about sound cards -- we didn't have those things back then.

Does anyone here know of free/opensource software that would do a good 
job of checking the condition of the hardware in a modern PC box?

TIA