I finally ditched 10.10 for 12.04 yesterday. Everything works except the sound card. I'v checked the forum and I tried to edit the alsa-base.conf file with different commands found online without sucess. I give myself a week. I'll try more commands, possibly getting a Realtek drivers patch or switching to the old kernel.
Any suggestion is welcome at this point ( since I did the install yesterday, I don't have much to lose except time).