I bought a ridiculously cheap CD\DVD burner from Amazon for my Dell Inspiron 3531. I've tried to use it twice, but it causes the machine to freeze and, before this, did not mount the disk I inserted. The manufacturer listed Linux fifth or sixth in the system compatibility list on the box it arrived in.

Are there such things as burners which are considered the best usable for Linux? I used to have a LITE-ON model that was very good in both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 (this was a while ago), Are there newer LITE-ON models that work as well?

Carver

At this point, optical drives are pretty much commodity items; you tend to get what you pay for. The cheap drive you bought would likely be problematic on any operating system. Here's a few articles rating external optical drives that you may find useful:

https://www.bestadvisor.com/best-external-cddvd-drives

https://www.gearhungry.com/best-external-optical-drive/

I'm unaware of any issues that are linux specific with any optical drive; if made properly they should all work OK. When building, I stick to known name brands, eg Lite-On, LG, Asus, and try to find the best deal.

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