Installing GAS

GAS is distributed as part of the binutils package, but since it is the default backend for GCC (GNU Compilers Collection), it would be better if we install GCC. In fact, installing GCC instead of binutils alone will slightly simplify the creation of executables out of our Assembly code, as GCC would automatically handle a few tasks during the linking process. Despite having its roots in *nix systems, GAS is also available for Windows and may be downloaded from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/ (just remember to add the bin subfolder in the installation folder to the PATH environment variable). Installation on Windows is quite straightforward--simply follow the steps in the GUI installation wizard.

As this book is intended for developers, it might be safe to assume that you already have it installed on your system, if you are on a *nix system, however, let's leave assumptions aside and install GAS.