Hi all,


after something like a decade I would like to revive an old Firebird
database that I found on an old drive and need some starters to get me
going.


*Then* I developed it on Windows XP and mainly edited it using a generic
DB management tool of which I forgot the name (it was a commercial
product with a free student's license).


Now I'm working on LInux exclusively and have a number of questions:


1)
I assume on LInux (Debian based Mint version and an Ubuntu flavor) I
install a variant of the server (in the repository I find the 2.5
variants, but I'd be also happy installing a downloaded 3.0 instead).
Then I need a generic DB manager like e.g. Flamerobin to do general
operations and basic DB editing. Or is it equally possible to do that in
the terminal?


Is that correct?


2)
How can I determine the version of my existing database file? And how
can I convert that to a current one in the expected case it isn't
compatible with my current installation? There is only the .fdb file and
no backup available.


Could you give me some hints on libraries or other tools to start
developing for/with Firebird again? I'd first like to write a usable
interface to that existing database and then maybe restart using
Firebird as a backend for further applications.


I'd be happy to use Python, especially PyQt, and/or Node.js/AngularJS
for creating a web frontend.


Thank you for any pointers
Urs