I *think* solved my problem!!!
Thank you Thank you Thank you!
I needed to perform additional steps as per
https://releases.linaro.org/12.10/components/toolchain/binariesI had to
sudo apt-get install lsb
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
in order to get /usr/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.7-2012.10-20121022_linux/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gdb to run.
(perhaps I needed to do only one of those, but I did both)
Once I saw arm-linux-gnueabihf-gdb that ran on the host PC from the terminal, I closed Eclipse, and ran the debug configuration.
It completed with no errors and I ended up with the debugger stopped (with a green bar) after main(). Unfortunately I crash when I step the program, but I now have a different problem to solve than the one I have been working on for several days.
Thank you again.
Once I figure this all out, I will make a complete post of my journey for the next poor newbie.