utilities for liteon dvd drive?

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>]

apropos my earlier query regarding not being able to boot from a DVD, 
it's been suggested to me that I might need a firmware update to my 
DVD/RW drive

unfortunately, all the manufacturer doesn't directly support anything 
except windows

so.. can anybody suggest utilities I can use, under Debian, to interact 
with a Liteon SHM-16 CD/DVD drive - to check/set config settings, check 
firmware version, flash firmware, etc.?

thanks much,

Miles