Had access to one of these, but couldn’t get it to accept a DVD when plugged into my Ubuntu laptop. Turns out…the drive needs to be “told” to wake up before it will accept a disc:
# Debian/Ubuntu/etc - Linux SCSI generic driver sudo apt install sg3-utils -y
# tell the external DVD player/burner to turn on
sudo sg_raw /dev/sr0 EA 00 00 00 00 00 01
Or, do it automatically via udev:
cat <<- EOF | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/90-mac-superdrive.rules > /dev/null
# Initialise Apple SuperDrive
ACTION=="add", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1500", ATTRS{idVendor}=="05ac", DRIVERS=="usb", RUN+="/usr/bin/sg_raw %r/sr%n EA 00 00 00 00 00 01"
EOF
via https://cmos.blog/use-apples-usb-superdrive-with-linux/comment-page-1/