Firebird is an open source relational database whose major advantage is the flexibility of deployment.
It's main competitor is SQLite and the Jet databases of Microsoft based on mdb.
Mdb does not boast many of the advanced modern features such as triggers, functions e.t.c
The worst drawback of mdb is it's incompatability with 64 bit operations systems. Microsoft even announced that it will not keep supporting mdb in the future.
Now that we were persuaded to use this wonderful DB let's see the basic steps to a successful deployment.
First step would be to download Firebird embedded from here:
Next, install the .NET provider:
The provider will fail unless it finds it's dependencies.
Go to the firebird embedded package and extract the following files:
fbembed.dll (depends on:)
icuuc30.dll (depends on:)
icudt30.dll
Now that the provider is ready to work, we can add a reference to it from visual studio: FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient.dll, initialize FBConnection and start creating and using tables.
What about a GUI client then?
My suggestion is "FlameRobin".
Google for it and install in it's default destination folder.
Copy to the installation folder of FlameRobin the fbembed dll and rename it to fbclient.dll.
Then copy all of it's dependencies.
Go to the firebird embedded package and copy firebird.msg file as well.
Open the flamerobin gui application.
Register a new database, you MUST provide the following password and username:
SYSDBA / masterkey, otherwise you get an unpleasant "connection error to localhost".
That's it, enjoy!