Ye, it's probably asked many times, but forum search didn't return any useful info (at least any new info)

The question is:
Are there any usable assembler debugger under unix?

I don't care for symbolic info support etc....

Currently I'm using ald, which is old, unmaintained and unfinished (and I hate that it decodes 0x90 wrong)

GDB <-- it sux, it sux, it sux, it sux..... ald is much better for debugging asm.

edb ( http://www.codef00.com/projects.php#debugger ) - doesn't work on FreeBSD yet
[I wrote FreeBSD, port, but it's broken yet http://aldis.git.bsdroot.lv/devel/edb/tree/]

RROD ( http://rr0d.droids-corp.org/ ) looks unmaintained for at least 3 years

So are there any other debugger I don't know?
---------
Currently I use ald, but there is one very strange behaviour in my code, when I repnz movsb ecx is decreasing normally, and then suddenly it skips some 10 iterations ..... (hard to explain, sorry)
I want to test this with other debugger

http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=9689

But you won't be able to use it in FreeBSD without porting and also it is 64-bit only (not sure if it is able to debug 32-bit code, but still requires a 64-bit OS).

thanks for info.....
porting to FreeBSD shouldn't be too hard

but I need 32bit debugger.....
I use old Pentium4

But at least now I know one more debugger

Maybe it sounds blasphemy here, but gdb + gas + gcc + cpp + ld do not suck at all. Even if you program unix-like systems (bsd, linux), then this is the way you might want to choose. GNU assembler provides you fine debug information which gdb understands without any problems (so, debugging doesn't suck any more even if you're using some GUI). You can even include system header files as you would do in C (when assembling with gcc it calls to the C-preprocessor automatically). Regarding the dark side however, gas doesn't give you so convenient macro facilities. To avoid this, some professional users apply m4 language to extend those macro possibilities of gas, but I've never needed it yet. I already posted some gcc sources on this board so you can search for them to get an impression about it. Additionally binutils contains lots of useful tools (readelf, objdump, etc.) as well as the GNU tool-chain is regularly updated and the most commercial tool-chains for embedded systems (where assembly is perhaps seriously needed) support gcc/gas syntax.

Thanks for info...
I haven't tried gas+gdb

Right now I work with fasm and ald. I already got used to ald.
Currently I've seen only 3 bugs:
1) 0x90 is disassembled as xchg eax, eax
2) when doing rep something in single step mode it skips some cycles (watch ecx)
3) after your program exit, it's easier to restart ald, than program in ald

The bonus is, that I don't need symbolic info (well almost don't need it. It's good to have symbolic info for _start )


Does gas SSSO (same source, same output)?

Nope, it has many many command line options.

Syntax is disgusting
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-gas-nasm.html

Indeed it is... for people used to the Intel syntax, that is

What is your problem with GDB?

It is useless without debugging symbols.
It is useless even with debugings symbols (when I compile with nasm)

It skips breakpoints..... that alone drives me nuts

I which I could use Ollydbg, or immunity debugger

Just to be clear, you are talking about variables names, for instance?

Sorry, I said debugging symbols, when I had to say debug information

hmm, that is actually not a bug.... This was documented in Intel's optimization manual

Gas knows also Intel syntax:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=84496#84496
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=93298#93298
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=91057#91057