installing packages not yet released

[slade]

I've been using linux for a year+ but I'm new to portage. I got a new laptop with an intel HDA ICH8 card, which it would appear is unsupported by the current 1.0.14 ALSA driver. I have heard that the card will be supported by 1.0.15, which is not currently released. Is there a way to install this driver through emerge (maybe by enabling a development repo?) or do I have to download and compile the driver myself?

[rand.a]

1st, compile alsa outside the kernel, which requires recompiling your kernel with alsa as a module, then emerge alsa-driver-9999. you will have to unmask that version, it should give you the very latest development version of alsa.