5 down vote accepted

To get you started, you can compile GDB in a separate directory, and run it from there.

Grab the sources for the version you want:  http://sources.redhat.com/gdb/

Run  ./configure  with the  --with-python , and then  make , but don't install it over your system copy.

At that point, you should be able to invoke gdb where it has been built with  ./builddir/gdb , rather than the one in your path. (This is where you should point eclipse debugging to, if you want to invoke it from there)