nVidia has released drivers for the nforce2 motherboards, available at nvidia.com's driver download page. If you follow the instructions there you won't have a problem.
However:
The nvaudio driver can be a little buggy at times. It is based on the ac97_codec and i810_audio OSS drivers which are part of newer kernels. I recommend if you are not going to use ALSA to use the ac97_codec and i810_audio (AC'97 and Intel 8x0 audio) compiled as modules.
I recommend above all to use ALSA. again, the intel 8x0 alsa driver works fine with nforce audio. ALSA is a bit more complicated to configure, but if you follow the directions on alsa-project.org you shouldn't have any trouble. ALSA is now available as part of the 2.6.x series kernel releases. That means that you can use menuconfig or xconfig and select nforce audio to be compiled into the kernel or as modules with the new kernel series.
The nvnet driver may not compile against newer kernel versions (like the 2.6.x series). However there is a solution. A couple of good people in the opensource world have reverse-engineered the driver. That means you can add nforce2 onboard ethernet support to 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels without using nvnet. They call this GPL'd driver "forcedeth". It is available as a kernel patch, with instructions on how to apply this patch available.
Once you apply the forcedeth patch to your kernel it will be listed as 'expiremental' under network devices and onboard ethernet controllers. It has a couple very minor bugs which won't affect most users, and it takes a second or two longer to init the driver, but I've been using it with no problems.
My current configuration is:
2.6.0-beta11 kernel with forcedeth patch applied
using alsa compiled into the kernel (not as modules because I never have a need to unload the driver)
using forcedeth to enable nforce ethernet (also compiled into kernel)
works flawlessly.
I have also used the OSS (ac97 and i810) modules with kernel versions 2.4.x along with nvnet with no problems except that it seems sound quality and support is a little better with alsa.
I have also used nvaudio and nvnet in conjunction with 2.4.x series kernels, and would recommend using the OSS modules mentioned above instead of nvaudio.
I have also used the alsa driver and nvnet in conjunction with 2.4.x series kernels. In theory it should work as well as alsa compiled with the 2.6.x kernels, but for some reason I seem to have fewer issues using the 2.6.x kernels. However I still recommend using alsa over nvaudio or the OSS modules with any kernel, especially since alsa supports OSS emulation.
My best experience by far has been using the 2.6.0-beta11 kernel with forcedeth for ethernet and alsa compiled in, as I mentioned above.
NOTE: Gentoo users, there is a 2.6 kernel with the forcedeth patch applied in the portage tree. It is actually the very kernel I'm using. the ebuild is:
sys-kernel/gentoo-dev-sources/gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.0_beta11-r1.ebuild
Feel free to contact me with any questions. cheers.
