I spent quite a bit of time researching my problem and found the solution at http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com/msg549082.html Let me copy the relevant bits:

cd /tmp
wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.16rc2.tar.bz2
tar -jxvf alsa-driver-1.0.16rc2.tar.bz2
cd alsa-driver-1.0.16rc2/
./configure --with-cards=hda-intel && make
sudo make install
sudo cp ./modules/snd-hda-intel.ko /lib/modules/$( uname -r )/ubuntu/media/snd-hda-intel/
sudo depmod -a
sudo reboot

Make sure that you check the ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver directory to see if a new version has been released.

I downloaded the RPM for Oracle XE for Linux and tried to install it without success. Here is my result:

medined@bashi:~/Desktop$ sudo rpm -ivh oracle-xe-10.2.0.1-1.0.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
        glibc >= 2.3.2 is needed by oracle-xe-10.2.0.1-1.0.i386
        libaio >= 0.3.96 is needed by oracle-xe-10.2.0.1-1.0.i386
        /bin/sh is needed by oracle-xe-10.2.0.1-1.0.i386

I did some research but could not find a way to update glibc. However, I did run into an apt-get repository mentioned at http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/install/xe-on-kubuntu.html. I followed the instructions on that page and had Oracle working within minutes.