If you use Debian with a “standard” or “desktop” install, you will not have GCC installed. Of course you can easily get it by installing the package:
apt-get install gcc
And of course you need make
apt-get install make
What you don’t know is that you won’t be able to do anything without your C library and headers. You will get errors that your compiler cannot make executables.
The package you want is libc6-dev
apt-get install libc6-dev
Much better!