If you need to execute occasional shell commands during your debugging session, there is no need to leave or suspend gdb; you can just use the shell command.
Invoke a standard shell to execute command string. If it exists, the environment variable SHELL determines which shell to run. Otherwise gdb uses the default shell (/bin/sh on Unix systems, COMMAND.COM on MS-DOS, etc.).
The utility make is often needed in development environments. You do not have to use the shell command for this purpose in gdb:
Execute the make program with the specified arguments. This is equivalent to shell make make-args.