You were spot-on,   Fastolfe++.   GCC was *not* installed, easily remedied with apt-get update && apt-get install gcc gcc-doc.

make now completes cleanly.   But now make test doesn't find a couple MIBs where it expects to.   So I'll tweak Makefile.PL to point to Deb's proper directories and start over.   Hmmm... or not. Don't recognise anything there as pointing to MIB files.

Update: In the Chatterbox, tye suggested that I make install anyway, in spite of make test errors, and it seems to have worked.   Many thanks to Fastolfe, tye, and other fine Monks who replied to my SOPW post.   8^)
    cheers,
    Don   (ybiC)
    striving for Perl Adept