Installing the latest version of Firebird on Ubuntu

In the official repositories of Ubuntu, you can find Firebird packages are not the very first freshness. For example, for my current LTS release 10.04.4 Lucid Lynx (yes, I'm a retrograde, I can't digest Unity and Gnome3) it will be Firebird 2.5.0.26074. While the latest official release is 2.5.2.26540 Security Update 1 . If you need the latest release, you need to either collect the bird from the source, or connect a third-party repository. Next is the second option.

Add ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mapopa 

Update the list of packages

 sudo apt-get update 

Next, install the server. During the process, you will be asked for a super-user password (SYSDBA):

 sudo apt-get install firebird2.5-super 

This is a super server architecture. If you prefer to use alternative configurations classic or super-classic, then the package installation commands will be as follows:

 sudo apt-get install firebird2.5-classic 

or

 sudo apt-get install firebird2.5-superclassic 

If you do not know which of the three architectures you need, read the documentation (if in Russian, from the Quick Start Guide of the old version 1.5 ), or immediately start with the super-server architecture.
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Run the installed version configurator (correct the package name if you stopped for a classic or a super-classic architecture):

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure firebird2.5-super 

Install the dev package and examples:

 sudo apt-get install firebird2.5-examples firebird2.5-dev 

The reference (test) database employee.fdb will be installed as an archive in /usr/share/doc/firebird2.5-examples/examples/empbuild/
Unpack and put somewhere closer:

 cd /usr/share/doc/firebird2.5-examples/examples/empbuild/ sudo gunzip employee.fdb.gz sudo chown firebird.firebird employee.fdb sudo mv employee.fdb /var/lib/firebird/2.5/data/ 

Connect to the test database via the isql console utility:

 $ /usr/bin/isql-fb 

SQL> connect "localhost:/var/lib/firebird/2.5/data/employee.fdb" user 'SYSDBA' password 'SYSDBApassword';

Replace the password with your own.
Do not forget to end the command with a semicolon.
Always add "localhost:" before the file path to the database. In this case, the lock-files and shared memory segments will be in the possession of the 'firebird' account. Another option is to add yourself to the 'firebird' group.

 $ sudo adduser `id -un` firebird 

If everything went well, then you will see a message that the connection is established to such and such a database under such a user. Next will be an invitation to enter the command:
Database: "/var/lib/firebird/2.5/data/employee.fdb ", User: SYSDBA

SQL>


You can request the tables available in the database:
SQL> show tables;
COUNTRY CUSTOMER
DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEE
EMPLOYEE_PROJECT JOB
PROJECT PROJ_DEPT_BUDGET
SALARY_HISTORY SALES

or server version:
SQL> show version;
ISQL Version: LI-V2.5.2.26508 Firebird 2.5
Server version:
Firebird/linux AMD64 (access method), version "LI-V2.5.2.26508 Firebird 2.5"
Firebird/linux AMD64 (remote server), version "LI-V2.5.2.26508 Firebird 2.5/tcp (arni-ubuntu)/P12"
Firebird/linux AMD64 (remote interface), version "LI-V2.5.0.26074 Firebird 2.5/tcp (arni-ubuntu)/P12"
on disk structure version 11.2

Create a new database:
SQL> create database "/var/lib/firebird/2.5/data/first_database.fdb" user 'SYSDBA' password 'SYSDBApassword' default character set UTF8;
Commit current transaction (y/n)?y
Committing.
Make sure that we are really connected to a new (empty) database:
SQL> show tables;
There are no tables in this database

Create a table and fill it with a couple of lines:
SQL> create table TEST(ID int not null primary key, NAME varchar(20));
SQL> show tables;
TEST
SQL> insert into TEST values (1, 'Firebird');
SQL> insert into TEST values (2, 'Hallo,Habr');
SQL> select * from TEST;
ID NAME

  ============ ===================================== =============================== 
            1 firebird                                                               
            2 Hallo, Habr                                                                   

Do not forget to commit your work:
SQL> commit;


To exit the console tool:
SQL> quit;

either more traditionally: ^ D

Finally, install the GUI tool for administering the Firebird databases: FlameRobin

 sudo apt-get install flamerobin 

After installation, look for it in the menu: Applications => Programming => FlameRobin.

We register our database:
And we use:

The tool can not be called advanced. From windows (and also, they say, from wine) you can connect and administer the database using IBExpert . This is already the most powerful IDE, which will give odds to many proprietary products for such commercial DBMS as MsSQL or Oracle. But the most important thing is that it is free for exUSSR:

Download from here .

The material underlying .