my cdburner is 48X but I wont burn an os over 12x and assumed his was at least that fast...sorry.

tech@tech2k:~$ dmesg | grep sr0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
tech@tech2k:~$

ohhh..i like that command....thanks Stephen