You can also compile assembly with gcc rather than as + ld. And you can output assembly from C programs gcc -S <source file> You can disassemble a binary

You can also compile assembly with gcc rather than as + ld. And you can output assembly from C programs gcc -S <source file> You can disassemble a binary to see how it actually looks. The resulting binary is much larger than your assembly code. objdump -d <binary file> Many disassemblers will show you friendlier output than objdump. I use ht editor (packaged in Debian based distros as ht), an open source clone of Hiew. In ht, press F6 -> select image, and you will have an easy to follow disassembled version of a binary that you can edit, if you happen to know opcodes.