It isn't standard for linked servers because you can get the metadata from some. I really don't know what makes the difference - there may be some way to structure the connection string in such a way that it either enables or knows how to get the metadata. I can share my experience though - with the Firebird driver I was using I spent a lot of time playing with it and wasn't able to get it to work whether it was using the driver direction or hopping through a system or user DSN. I finally decided that I would end up spending more time trying to tweak connection strings than it would take to look everything up and moved on.

I know this isn't helpful, but at least you know that someone shared your pain.

Chad