Blitzmax seems to have some problems with sound on the more recent versions of Ubuntu (is the distribution you’re using?). I’m looking through the forums and it doesn’t looks like there’s a simple fix for this problem, though here are a couple of potentially enlightening links:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=97927

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=45527

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=98370

And this looks like the best way to make sure you have all the lib dependencies:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=88613

Hope this helps ~

 

EDIT: The fix is:

sudo apt-get install libopenal1:i386 libopenal-dev:i386

Other linux distros need to modify that command accordingly (https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/diag/missinglibopenal has a good reference sheet). You may need to reboot following the install.