I need a debugger for assembly on Linux. I am extremely surprised by the LACK of debuggers out there for Linux! It should have various features, such as showing the registers and what not. I would use GDB, however it isn't exactly friendly with NASM.
I would rather have the debugger have intel syntax however I can make a sacrifice.
I have tried kdb, gdb/ddd, and ald. Does anyone know of any else? Don't recommend strace, because I am going beyond syscalls!
I am not sure what exactly you mean when you say that gdb is not friendly with NASM. The thing is that gdb uses AT&T notation for displaying assembler. NASM uses Intel notation. There are a couple of differences, which you can find on Google.
You can configure gdb to display assembler using Intel notation. The command is:
set disassembly-flavor intel
Programs that you've tried, kdb, ddd and friends are all gdb front-ends, i.e. they present you different UI while use gdb as their back-end.
I think your best and perhaps the only reasonable option is gdb. Another option is to write a debugger yourself, but this is quite complicated.
Hope it helps.
I'm really understand the @Saustin's question because I was looking for a Linux Assembly Debugger too, which means the possibility for create breakpoints, run step by step, see the registers on real time, go back (backtrace) or go forward, see the data in memory, etc,.
The solution is use properly DDD/GDB.
First at all it is the screenshot show how it looks.
It needs some special requirement:
-F stabs in nasm like this:Linux command line:
nasm -f elf -F stabs hello.asm -o hello_stabs.o
ld -m elf_i386 hello_stabs.o -o hello_stabs
Then you run your the debug normally like: ddd hello_stabs
Enjoy!
The option -F stabs, tells the assembler to include debugging information in the output file. DDD and GDB use the STABS debugging format.
Source and good short tutorial:
