how to manage volume with alsamixer & new notebooks.

[Jois]

Hi
I have a serious problem. My soundcard works with alsa, only... It works 
but my notebook has a particular way to manage the volume: pressing fn+f11 
it decreases, pressing fn+f12 it increases (fn is the function key at the 
left of the ctrl key in notebooks).
But it works in windows, not in Linux! So I have to manage with alsamixer 
and it's such a difficulty! Does someone have the solution to make those 
*censored-word* deadkeys work?
One other thing... alsa does not start from the boot, I am really going mad 
for that; I need alsa and the soundcard driver (intel 8x0 module) to work 
at the boot otherwise festival would not start when I will install it.