For anyone testing the Firebird adapter (or interested in doing so), I updated the instructions on the wiki with a simpler, improved test setup. Click "See changes" on the bottom of the page for details on what changed: http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/Firebird%20Adapter Also... I hear that some people actually use Windows as a development environment (perhaps due to factors outside of your control). Sorry ;( Anyway... if that''s you''re predicament, you may be interested in a How-To on using the Firebird adapter with embedded Firebird: http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/How%20To%20Run%20Embedded%20Firebird%20On%20Windows Cheers, Ken PS: If you''ve been testing the Firebird adapter, please share feedback :)