Since I helped Mandriva to do their packages for Firebird, I jumped and with Michal, we made things happen
Users of Opensuse 10.0,10.1,10.3 and future 11.0 but also SLE 10 can now just use the server:database repository  and get Firebird 2.0.4
As soon as the Firebird Project will publish Firebird 2.1.1, packages will be there too.
Dozens of new options for Firebird and .NET Framework
Hey!
If you have ever worked with Firebird or Interbase using the standard .NET provider for OLE DB (System.Data.OleDb), you will have likely encountered issues like this:
- The necessity to add ALL parameters manually.
- Even though the OLE DB provider supports parameter generation for commands, the .NET provider doesn’t use it, so you as the programmer must do that work on your own.
- The lack of support for named parameters. Although they actually exist, using them in reality requires a whole set of complex manipulations (the steps needed to add a parameter to a collection, etc.).
- The impossibility of using multiple DataReader objects at the same time (Multiple Active Result Sets).
- No execution of SQL scripts which contain several SQL expressions per command.
This list of difficulties a .NET developer has to deal with is far from complete.
Now it’s all different in a fundamentally new ADO.NET Data Provider for OLE DB
IBProvider Team