About this guide

The Firebird Quick Start Guide is an introduction for the complete newcomer to a few essentials for getting off to a quick start with a Firebird binary kit. The guide first saw the light as Chapter 1 of the Using Firebird manual, sold on CD by IBPhoenix. Later it was published separately on the Internet. In June 2004, IBPhoenix donated it to the Firebird Project. Since then it is maintained, and regularly updated, by members of the Firebird documentation project.

Important: Before you read on, verify that this guide matches your Firebird version. This guide covers versions 2.0–2.0.6 and 2.1-2.1.4. For all other Firebird versions, get the corresponding Quick Start Guide at https://www.firebirdsql.org/?op=doc.

Some warnings before you start:

• Firebird 2.0.2 was recalled due to a regression; if you use it, upgrade to 2.0.3 or higher ASAP and make sure to read your new version's Release Notes.
• If you want to rely on Linux forced writes to work correctly, upgrade to at least 2.0.4.