External DVD writer?

[Peter Diercks]

Hello List!

Somehow my old CD drive has died. Now I consider buying a DVD writer.
For certain reasons I would prefer an external one which connects to my
Dell 4200 PC through USB.

My questions: Do external DVD drives work under Ubuntu 7.10? Are there
manufacturers/models one should avoid? Can such drives be configurated
as boot drives? Does this depend on the PC's BIOS version, and if so,
how can I tell a "good" BIOS from a "bad" one?

Kind regards,
Peter