Assembly on Linux? (Score 1)

Though not an OS class, I am currently in a 300-level introduction to Assembly on the x86 processors. We have a new professor who's currently teaching our class using TASM (Borland's assembler) on MS-DOS as was the tradition before him. However, he is considering teaching it in Linux next semester using asm86 or something like that.

I, of course, am always an advocate of learning more about Linux, but I am curious as to what, if any, advantages there would be. I am also curious about other introductory assembly courses that are taught in Linux. Friends of mine have used SPARCs (running Solaris, I assume) too, but I haven't heard of any Linux classes.