Firebird can install symlinks or copies named after the 1.0 libs (with the “old” InterBase names), to maintain compatibility with third-party products which need these files.

Some extra pieces are also needed for the client-only install.

At present, no separate installation program is available to install only the client pieces on a Windows machine. If you are in the common situation of running Windows clients to a Linux or other Unix-like Firebird server (or another Windows machine), you need to download the full Windows installation kit that corresponds to the version of Firebird server you install on your server machine.

3.5.2. Linux and some other Posix clients

A small-footprint client install program for Linux clients is not available either. Additionally, some Posix flavours — even within the Linux constellation — have somewhat idiosyncratic requirements for filesystem locations. For these reasons, not all *x distributions for Firebird even contain a client-only install option.

For most Linux flavours, the following procedure is suggested for a manual Firebird client-only install. Log in as root for this.

1. …replacing 3.0.*n* with your version number, e.g. 3.0.0 or 3.0.4

   If you’re running applications that expect the legacy libraries to be present, also create the following symlinks:

   ln -s /usr/lib/libfbclient.so /usr/lib/libgds.so.0
   ln -s /usr/lib/libfbclient.so /usr/lib/libgds.so

2. Copy to the client machine, preferably into the /opt/firebird directory. If you place it somewhere else, create a system-wide permanent FIREBIRD environment variable pointing to the right directory, so that the API routines can locate the messages.

Instead of copying the files from a server, you can also pull them out of a Firebird tar.gz kit. Everything you need is located in the /opt/firebird tree within the buildroot.tar.gz archive that’s packed inside the kit.