Well... I'm not aware of any "Nasm include directory" or any "Nasm directory" (Windows may have one) except for the source directory if you built Nasm from source (.../nasm-x.y where x and y are version number). You can find Nasm itself (and ndisasm) by doing "which nasm" - probably /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. There are no include files that "come with" Nasm.
"asm_io.inc" sounds like one of Dr. Paul Carter's files, although it could be anything. As I recall (it was a long time ago I downloaded it), his examples untarred into a single directory - that may have changed. Where did you put it? If you've lost track, "locate asm_io.inc" should find it. /usr/local/include might be a sensible place to put this stuff, but it isn't automatic (unless Ubuntu - apt-get or so - does something with... whatever you downloaded). ASSuming you've got Dr. Carter's stuff, besides "asm_io.inc" you'll need to link against "asm_io.o", which you may have to build from "asm_io.asm". You'll also need to find "driver.c". Be sure you got the examples package intended for Linux!
http://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm I think...
As an alternative to putting the full path in your source...
%include "/home/fbk/oldsrc/pctut/asm_io.inc"
(elsewhere on your system, no doubt), you can tell Nasm where to look by including the "-I" switch on the command line...
nasm -f elf32 first.asm -I /home/fbk/oldsrc/pcasm/
(or wherever) Note that the trailing '/' is required! We have had several contributions eliminating this requirement, but they have all been rejected. RTFM:
http://www.nasm.us/xdoc/2.10.05/html/nasmdoc2.html#section-2.1.16 under "really perverse" to see why.
You may, if you wish, set an environment variable NASMENV which will be appended to the command line. You can put one or more search directories ("-i" or "-I") here, if you wish. (RTFM if you need spaces in your pathnames) If you want to make /usr/local/include/ your "nasm include directory", this might be a good place to do it.
If I've misunderstood which "asm_io.inc" you're looking for, we can discuss it further, but I'm pretty sure you didn't get it "with Nasm".
Best,
Frank