i recently saw mentioned on slashdot an article in which one of the architects at microsoft was
looking at building a command-line version of their server line. apparently, they realize that
sometimes, you really don't want the overhead of a GUI ... but that's a ways off.

i'd personally recommend slackware. things to do for the easiest install:
- make sure you tell it, during install, that you don't care about X (if installed, not started)
- create /opt/ if it doesn't exist (so you don't have to tell firebird to install elsewhere)
- create /etc/rc.d/init.d/ so the install script can drop the startup/shutdown script there
- modify /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 to have your network configuration (you may want to strip the file down
to the essentials, so it's easier to read)
- modify /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 to start firebird (/etc/rc.d/init.d/firebird start)
- modify /etc/inetd.conf to remove anything but ssh, if you want security
- recompile the kernel for your CPU and hardware, statically linking only support you need to run
on a dialy basis, and compiling as modules anything you'll need occasionally.
- modify /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to load anything as modules you need on startup as a module (none?)
- change the SYSDBA password, and reflect that change in /etc/rc.d/init.d/firebird

i'm sure i'm missing something ...

one thing's for sure -- it's a lot more fun to test your program against a database -not- running
on another programmer's machine, while they're compiling a large project ...

-philip