There isn't a rule, really. English is known for it's special spelling at times. There's a dummy word that perfectly describes this:

Ghoti, a respelling of the word fish and pronounced the same way (/ˈfɪʃ/). It uses the sounds gh from enough, o from women and ti from intention (not necessarily those words, but those sounds).

It just goes to show that the English pronunciation can be quite unpredictable at times if your point when you're basing it on spelling. So speaking the language correctly is just a matter of studying the pronunciation of tthe words or relying on your language instinct.

It was a tough question. I thought it through, though. Rules for 'ough'?
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 a month ago and am using it till now. I failed to notice that all this time there was no sound at all while running Ubuntu, even while playing a game in Wine. The weird thing is that only the startup sound comes when I log in (Indian/African drum tone), then comes the utter silence.

I tested both Digital Output (S/PDIF) and the speakers in the sound settings but can hear nothing.

Any help?
