Do you have working ALSA drivers installed on your system?

how do i check?

i believe ubuntu uses esd. but im not totally sure. apparently they have switched it around alot.

I've never heard of esd, but I haven't used Linux much in the last 8 years. Last I heard, everyone had switched from OSS (I think that's what it was called) to ALSA because the OSS people started getting greedy. DOSBox is obviously looking for an ALSA device on your system, so you need to either get ALSA working, or get DOSBox to use something else (which may not be possible on Linux without writing code to do it).

ESD is not necessarily related to either oss or alsa. You might want to look at your /etc/modules.conf or whatever Ubuntu uses. There would likely be some modules that start with alsa- if you have that running. The oss modules would depend on your soundcard.

There is the possibility that you are running alsa, but the sequencer isn't set up properly. If you want to check that out, the best bet might be to try playing a midi file and see if it works.

If you think you are running oss as opposed to alsa, the first thing is to try setting the environment variable SDL_AUDIODRIVER to oss.
For me I'd use a command along the lines of
'export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=oss'
from a terminal and then try running dosbox. Or if that doesn't work try 'setenv SDL_AUDIODRIVER oss' instead.
Though this would just set it until the terminal is closed whereupon the setting would be lost. If it works and you want to set it permanently you have to change the file .bashrc or .cshrc or whatever Ubuntu uses (depending on which shell you use) in your home directory.(No idea if that setting would affect any of your other applications though)


The other (and from what I see of your messages likely to affect only the midi, if at all) is-
first from inside dosbox use
'config -writeconf dosbox.conf'

Exit dosbox, then edit the dosbox.conf that is created under the [midi] section and try changing the device=default to device=oss.

Then try running dosbox again.
If it's working right you should get the message:

CONFIG:Loading settings from config file dosbox.conf
MIDI:Opened device:oss

If you get the message:

CONFIG: Using default settings. Create a configfile to change them

You'll have to try running dosbox from the directory where the dosbox.conf is.

Ok i figured out what it was. my sound card was a usb soundcard, that doesn't support hardware mixing. so its alot like the "win-modems" that never/rarely work in linux. I put my old soundblaster live in and it works great now.
😀

Hi!Sorry but I have the same problem! I have the alsa working perfectly in ubuntu.. It is a ac'97 8233.. I have the same errors of graig but nono of the replies worked! How can I do?! sorry for my english! See you..

With Ubuntu go to the Sound preferences menu. Uncheck the sound server. This disables ESD which prevents many programs from accessing sound on some chipsets.

sorry... it doesn't work..if I do that,the sound doesn't work anymore even for other programs!anyone have other ideas? I tried to change the dosbox.conf by changing midi sound from default to alsa but it doesn't work too because it need some other configurations!Tnx for your help anyway!

I'm afraid I don't know too much about alsa so I'm not sure how much help I can be.
It might be helpful to do some diagnostics-

-for the /etc/module.conf do you have either the snd_via82xx or via82cxxx_audio modules? I believe the first is for alsa and the second for oss.

-do you have a /dev/snd/seq file? and what does it read for permissions, specifically when you run "ls /dev/snd/seq -l"?

-what does your /var/log/messages (not sure about where Ubuntu keeps its messages file) have when you try to start up dosbox? (You will likely have to be root to read the file.) As well it might be helpful to look for anything about sound or the soundcard for either starting X windows and at bootup. (and PLEASE do not post the entire messages file as it will likely include a number of your passwords and quite likely other information best left off the internet)

Let's see.. I'm a newbie so forgive me if I make something wrong..Anyway I don't have a /etc/module.conf file... I don't have a /dev/snd/seq file too..and about the /var/log/messages well it doesn't seem to change after i start DOSBOX... It has older messages about eth0 tcp or these kind of things..sorry..what do you say about it?

If you have esd (soundserver) working, why not try this one:
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=esd

Your card probably has no hardware midi, so if you need that search for timidity or fuildsynth, there are threads in this forum dealing with these.

Now... I installed timidity and setting something it worked something somehow... I tried to play a game then with dosbox... It make some sound but very very badly.. here is what I got:
CONFIG:Loading settings from config file dosbox.conf
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0)
MIDI:Opened device:oss
To make something work I think the key was to use these 2 commands:
sudo modprobe snd-seq-oss
timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os1l -s 44100
But still as I said I have big problems,the sound is extremely bad!What do you think about it?

Ok, I shouldn't have mentioned timidity & co., don't use them for now. Just try to get digital sound (used for sound blaster, adlib, speaker, etc) working:
Have you tried the esd thing I mentioned before? If you have and the sound is just choppy, read the README/WIKI about speeding up dosbox.

I tried the esd but it doesn't work... anyway I think I solved the problem in this way..when I want to play I go to the terminal and I write:
sudo modprobe snd-seq-oss
timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os1l -s 44100
when you start timidity it tells you Opening sequencer port: 128:0 128:1 128:2 128:3, or something similar.. Then I go to the dosbox.conf and I set config=128:0 (in this example),in the midi part.. Then I go with the terminal in the directory where dosbox.conf is and I start it with:
dosbox dosbox.conf
You have to work a little bit but it seems to work with the games I tried today... If I will have future problems with this I will let you know it.. Anyway if somebody have an idea about something quicker it would be interesting!

Simple: tell your linux distribution to get alsa right. These things should not be your job.