TL;DR: ArmoryDB on commandline gave Illegal Instruction.  Building from source solved issue.  Thanks!

########## Not gonna be that guy that says "fixed it!" with no info.

Uninstalled Armory to build from source, read goatpig's post, reinstalled 96.5 from .deb.  Result:

$ ArmoryDB
/home/happy
/home/happy
/home/happy/.armory is not a valid path
logging in /home/happy/.armory/dbLog.txt
-INFO  - 18:22:04: (main.cpp:32) Running on 4 threads
-INFO  - 18:22:04: (main.cpp:33) Ram usage level: 50
-INFO  - 18:22:04: (BDM_Server.h:263) Listening on port 9001

# Hangs so I close

^C

# Ran Armory from Mint Menu, got "Failed to spawn DB", closed Armory

$ ArmoryDB
/home/happy
/home/happy
logging in /home/happy/.armory/dbLog.txt
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (main.cpp:32) Running on 4 threads
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (main.cpp:33) Ram usage level: 50
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (BlockUtils.cpp:915) blkfile dir:  /media/vault/blockchains/bitcoin/blocks
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (BlockUtils.cpp:916) lmdb dir: /home/happy/.armory/databases
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (lmdb_wrapper.cpp:388) Opening databases...
-INFO  - 18:22:37: (BDM_Server.h:263) Listening on port 9001
Illegal instruction
$

$ dpkg -r armory

Built v0.96 from source.  Build failed:

lrelease: could not exec '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin/lrelease': No such file or directory

Fix this by: sudo apt-get install qttools5-dev-tools

On a hunch that the illegal instruction was from missing qt library I ran make clean, then reinstalled Armory from .deb.  Configured it, same results, could not spawn DB.  Illegal instruction.  Uninstalled from deb.

Realized that there is a v0.96.5 tag.  Switched to it, verified signature, make clean (again), autogen, configure, make.  Build is successful.

$ python ArmoryQt.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "update_version.py", line 14, in
    f = open(hash_loc, "r")
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '.git/6640d6257ab0c37013e5cd4b99681a5cfc3'
/home/happy
********************************************************************************
Loading Armory Engine:
   Armory Version:       0.96.5
   Armory Build:         None
   PyBtcWallet  Version: 1.35
Detected Operating system: Linux
   OS Variant            : ('LinuxMint', '18.3', 'sylvia')
   User home-directory   : /home/happy
   Satoshi BTC directory : /media/vault/blockchains/bitcoin
   Armory home dir       : /home/happy/.armory/
   ArmoryDB directory     : /home/happy/.armory/databases
   Armory settings file  : /home/happy/.armory/ArmorySettings.txt
   Armory log file       : /home/happy/.armory/armorylog.txt
   Do wallet checking    : True
(ERROR) ArmoryUtils.py:3735 - Unsupported language  specified. Defaulting to English (en)
/home/happy/BitcoinArmory/armoryengine/Transaction.py:3126: SyntaxWarning: import * only allowed at module level
  def PyCreateAndSignTx_old(srcTxOuts, dstAddrsVals):
"sni-qt/8602" WARN  20:54:26.857 void StatusNotifierItemFactory::connectToSnw() Invalid interface to SNW_SERVICE
(WARNING) SDM.py:402 - Spawning DB with command: /home/happy/BitcoinArmory/ArmoryDB --db-type="DB_FULL" --cookie --satoshi-datadir="/media/vault/blockchains/bitcoin/blocks" --satoshi-port=8333 --datadir="/home/happy/.armory/" --dbdir="/home/happy/.armory/databases"


# Armory launches and builds databases.

Thanks!