Being that I am not a cli guru, I seem to remember
somewhere there is a command that checks for
differences in file names. Could that be used to scan
or compare the two distro's and then list only the
differences and also limited to those that are found
on the installed program vs the newer program?

The drivers are probably contained in modules.  Fair bet is you'll see the names hanging out in /etc/modprobe.d

James McPhee
jmcphe@gmail.com