could you do
gdb dosbox
run
and see where the exception occurs ?

uhm i forgot

gdb dosbox
catch throw
run
bt

ok...there are more details :

Program received signal SIGFPE, Arithmetic exception.
[Switching to Thread 1079434272 (LWP 5927)]
0x40148529 in SDL_SYS_JoystickName () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0
(gdb) bt
#0 0x40148529 in SDL_SYS_JoystickName () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0
#1 0x00000009 in ?? ()
#2 0x8014454b in ?? ()
#3 0xbfffe010 in ?? ()

is there anything else i can do ?

...thanks

try detaching your joystick if you have any ?
but it's a good start.

it looks like an internal SDL error. SDL_sys_.... are internals of SDL I think.

If you don't mind recompiling the source there is a define in
dosbox/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp that disables joystick support
just enable it (it's commented out)

I'm afraid I'm also experiencing a problem that may/may not be related. In my case this is SuSE 9.1 x86-64 (no sdl 32 bit is part of that distribution so I couldn't compile 32 bit - or at least I gave up trying). The trace below is with "#define DISABLE_JOYSTICK" uncommented as you stated, but it crashes just the same when it's present or not unfortunately.

(gdb) catch throw
Catchpoint 1 (throw)
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/abalmer/src/dosbox-0.61/src/dosbox
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread 182926873536 (LWP 15147)]
Catchpoint 1 (throw)
[New Thread 1075837296 (LWP 15158)]
CONFIG: Using default settings. Create a configfile to change them
[New Thread 1077934448 (LWP 15159)]
ALSA:Client initialised [65:0]
MIDI:Opened device:alsa
MODEM:Can't open listen port:Couldn't bind to local port

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 182926873536 (LWP 15147)]
0x000000000046d2f8 in Normal<8u, 32u, false> ()
(gdb) bt
#0 0x000000000046d2f8 in Normal<8u, 32u, false> ()
#1 0x000000000045ff43 in VGA_VerticalTimer ()
#2 0x000000000045a6ae in PIC_RunQueue ()
#3 0x0000000000406189 in Normal_Loop ()
#4 0x000000000040561a in DOSBOX_RunMachine ()
#5 0x0000000000406fb6 in CALLBACK_Idle ()
#6 0x000000000047c225 in INT16_Handler ()
#7 0x00000000004061cf in Normal_Loop ()
#8 0x0000000000405624 in DOSBOX_RunMachine ()
#9 0x0000000000406e4f in CALLBACK_RunRealInt ()
#10 0x0000000000433a0d in device_CON::Read ()
#11 0x00000000004354ab in DOS_ReadFile ()
#12 0x0000000000489da4 in DOS_Shell::InputCommand ()
#13 0x0000000000484b13 in DOS_Shell::Run ()
#14 0x000000000048494a in SHELL_Init ()
#15 0x000000000047f247 in Config::StartUp ()
#16 0x000000000046a5b6 in main ()
(gdb)

Try turning off the aRts sound server (not just suspend, but completely disable)

Run it:

artsdsp dosbox

it crashes during screen updates.
Can you sdl get surfaces for your screen depth ?
Dosbox assumes this is the case.