So I just did a
sudo apt-get -y install ekos-debugger
sudo apt-get -y install gdb
ekosdebugger
and chose the stable release and then my latest compile from source (as in my previous post) to launch in ekosdebugger. Both launched without a problem.
After that, launching them without using the debugger also worked (the find Function wokred).
Not sure what the installs tweaked, but something was kicked into working.