Hi, from my [little] experience...

> Is Firebird suitable for web access? I will be accessing the database
> from a PHP powered web application situated on a dedicated web server

yes. have been using it with LAMP just great!

> Classic or Super? I've read the papers on the subject, and it seems to
> me that I should go for Classic, seeing as I would like to fully utilize
> a multicore system. Is this assumption correct?

On SMP/multi-core machines Classic without doubt.

> How important is RAM? The databases aren't very large (a few hundred
> megs total). On the Windows server it seems the Firebird instance never
> grows beyond 25-30 MB. I know from a few MySQL servers I run that RAM

Well, RAM is always good, but you can be fine with 500MB (or less) total but
it depends on your OS, what it is running besides FB and apache, what does
your app, and so forth.

> How important is harddrive speed? IDE, SATA, SCSI?

Here I think it's *very* important. You can use SATA to system and apps. But
I'd go with a SAS(SCSI) for the DB -- it's faster and more reliable.

> Intel or AMD? I personally have no preference, except I tend to cheer
> for the little guy. :o)

not an issue.

> OS suggestions? I plan on using Slackware, as all my other servers are
> running Slack (except of course for the one Windows server discussed
> above).

the one you're more confortable with. I personally like RedHat's ones.

> This is my very first venture into the Firebird world. Any and all
> advice is welcome.

Most performance issues are due to bad design (app design, sql query design,
and so) ... than, take a look at it


Regards,
Anderson