I'm running 9.04 kubuntu. Out of the box I wasn't getting any sound.
[09:40]dormouse:~/apps/dwarf_fortress_40d17$ ./df
mkdir: cannot create directory `unused_libs': File exists
mv: cannot stat `libs/libSDL*': No such file or directory
Sound devices available:
ALSA Software on default
ALSA Software on HDA Intel
OSS Software
Wave File Writer
Picking ALSA Software on default. If your desired device was missing, make sure you have the appropriate 32-bit libraries installed. If you wanted a different device, configure ~/.openalrc appropriately.
Perfect OpenAL context attributes GET
Loading bindings from data/init/interface.txt
data/sound/song_title.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/song_game.ogg not found, sound not loaded
Using OpenGL output path with client-side arrays
GPU does not support non-power-of-two textures, using 512x512 catalog.
data/sound/baystart.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/baybeyond.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/bayquality.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/bayend.ogg not found, sound not loaded
Slot 0-0 requested, but no song loaded
Slot 0-1 requested, but no song loaded
Slot 0-2 requested, but no song loaded
Slot 0-3 requested, but no song loaded
data/sound/DFINTRO.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/DFPICK.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/DFRUBBLE.ogg not found, sound not loaded
data/sound/DFINTROEND.ogg not found, sound not loaded
Slot 0-0 requested, but no song loaded
Apparently the version of libsndfile that shipped with 9.04 (Version: 1.0.17-4ubuntu1) doesn't have ogg support. Ogg/Vorbis support was added in version 1.0.18.
I was able to compile libsndfile from source (this required compiling libvorbis from source) and get things working. Here's a rough list of commands to make this happen (I have no idea if there are other necessary dependencies I had already installed).
sudo apt-get install libfishsound1-dev liboggz1-dev
wget http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/vorbis/libvorbis-1.2.3.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf libvorbis-1.2.3.tar.bz2; cd libvorbis-1.2.3
./configure; make; sudo make install; sudo ldconfig
cd ..
wget http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/files/libsndfile-1.0.21.tar.gz
tar -xjvf libsndfile-1.0.21.tar.gz; cd libsndfile-1.0.21
./configure; make; sudo make install; sudo ldconfig