XMAME sound / alsa

[ai-guy]

I have banging my head against the issue of sound in XMAME.  I have a Debian (sarge) install. After the first n hours of mucking about with no sound whatsoever, I read that 2.6.8 had numerous difficulties with sound drivers, so I upgraded to a newer kernel 2.6.18. This enabled me to get sound out of my CD player, but still no sound from XMAME.

The error I get when running the program indicates that /dev/dsp does not exist, and sure enough it doesn't. Somehow the ALSA-OSS wrapper is not working correctly. I've been trying everything I can think of (MAKEDEV, alsaconf, various configuration files) to get the device working and consulted numerous sources, but I'm still in the same situation. 

So, I'm wondering if there is a compile-time configuration option or something that will cause XMAME to use the ALSA sound devices (/dev/snd/*) instead of /dev/dsp?

Or should I just give up and try my luck with AdvanceMAME?

Any advice appreciated. I'm done with my cabinet and just started my wiring, and I want to have computer ready when it's time to put the pieces together.