Linux Friendly Hardware Database ??

[Michael A. Peters]

Many moons ago I bough a Sony DVD burner.
It worked in Linux from day one - worked extremely well.

I finally ran out of my supply of DVD-R and bought another 50 spindle.
It will not burn to them - first spitting out the disk and sucking back 
in, and then failing when it comes to the burn.

I googled the error and found that my drive is old enough that for the 
new media types, I need to update the firmware on the drive. Went to get 
the new firmware, and read the instructions. You can not update the 
firmware from a DOS boot floppy, you update the firmware from within 
Windows.

That's a bit of a problem for me, I do not have windows, and this is NOT 
the kind of task I would expect to work in wine (though I may be wrong, 
I kind of doubt it would).

So I'm on the hunt for a new DVD burner, but I'd like to find one that 
allows firmware updating via boot floppy or bootable flash drive. I'm 
having trouble finding one.

Is there a hardware database of Linux friendly hardware that takes into 
account things like firmware updates?
I hate having to replace hardware that otherwise functions perfectly, 
but just needs new firmware.