On Debian and derivatives, the package you’re looking for is gcc-arm-none-eabi:

apt install gcc-arm-none-eabi

To find this out yourself in future, install apt-file, update your indexes and use it to search for commands:

apt install apt-file
apt-file update
apt-file search bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc

The error comes from the fact that you're missing the loader for the binary, /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (as indicated by file). Once you have that installed you'll be able to run ldd arm-none-eabi-gcc to see what's required in addition.

The executable is in a valid format, which the kernel understands, so you don't get an "Exec format error", but when the kernel tries to run it, it can't find a required file — the loader —, hence "No such file or directory".

As you figured out, a quick solution to get it running on the 64 bit machine is to run:

sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5

although a better solution in the long run is to use appropriate :i386 multiarch packages (which should be what gets pulled in by lib32 packages).

I found the solution based on the discussion available at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/377345/installing-arm-none-eabi-gcc and the documentation available on https://mynewt.apache.org/latest/get_started/native_install/cross_tools.html#installing-the-arm-cross-toolchain.

The name and structure of the software changed over time. The arm-none-eabi-gcc is gcc-arm-none-eabi now, and so on.

$ sudo apt-get remove binutils-arm-none-eabi gcc-arm-none-eabi
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update 
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi
$ sudo apt-get install gdb-arm-none-eabi 

And finally, to verify the downloads, you can run the following commands:

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version 

fixed, using:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm*

You can delete the following folder:

/Users/username/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino

And then use the boards manager to reinstall your board package.

Well, that was easy. I just needed to install libnewlib-arm-none-eabi and now everything works. I guess that package is basically 'libc' for this compiler.

How to identify the problem?

file cross_compiled_executable

Contains something like:

interpreter /lib/ld-uClibc.so.0

and the problem is that that file does not exist on the target.

How to solve the problem?

Use a proper compiler, either:

• the person who created the disk image must provide you the cross compiler or tell you exactly how to build it, e.g. with crosstool-ng.
• compile your own image and cross compiler, e.g. with Buildroot. Here is an example.

• use a native compiler on the target. But generally targets are much slower than your host, and space constrained, so you likely don't want to do this.

  You might also be able to use a functional emulator such as QEMU to build, and then only run the programs on a slower platform, e.g. gem5 or a slow board.

Just hacking up the interpreter is potentially not enough, notably you have to ensure binary compatibility between the program and the target libc, or program and kernel interfaces (syscalls, /proc, etc.) if you try to use -static (the target kernel might be too old and not contain the required interfaces). The only robust solution is to use the correct toolchain.

It turned out that ARM decided to make our life easier (sarcasm) by deprecating the use of PPA - their page at launchpad now has an anouncement: "... all new binary and source packages will not be released on Launchpad henceforth ...".

So, to make use of their latest arm-none-eabi-gdb you have to install gcc-arm-embedded manually.

Remove arm-none-eabi-gcc from your system:

sudo apt remove gcc-arm-none-eabi

Download latest version (Linux x86_64 Tarball) from their website, check its MD5. Unpack it into some directory. I used /usr/share/ :

sudo tar xjf gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION.bz2 -C /usr/share/

Create links so that binaries are accessible system-wide:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc 
sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++ /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++
sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb
sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION/bin/arm-none-eabi-size /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-size
sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-YOUR-VERSION/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy

Install dependencies. ARM's "full installation instructions" listed in readme.txt won't tell you what dependencies are - you have to figure it out by trial and error. In my system I had to manually create symbolic links to force it to work:

sudo apt install libncurses-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncurses.so.6 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncurses.so.5
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.6 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5

Check if it works:

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-gdb --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version

For some reason the installer did not put the binaries in my path. I fixed this with

export PATH="/Applications/ARM/bin:$PATH"

and then was able to run make without error.