I recently installed Gnome 3 in Ubuntu 11.04 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p. Since then, my hard volume buttons have stopped working, and my manual volume control via the top-right corner has had no impact on whether or not my computer releases sounds. As a matter of fact, I seem to have no OS-wide volume control whatsoever: it's always on. Going into the Gnome 3 "Sound Settings" makes me feel like there might be drivers missing, as it doesn't recognize any of my hardware, or acknowledge that said hardware exists.
I imagine this has something to do with drivers, but the drivers were working fine until I installed Gnome 3. So I suppose my main question is "Why isn't Gnome 3 listed as the alpha software it is?" with a hefty side of "does anybody know what happened to my sound drivers," and "is there a magic wand I can wave to get them all back?"