For a given device, sometimes one linux distro perfectly supports a hardware component. Then if I switch distros, the same component no longer functions at all, or is very buggy.
But where do you start to look? Most distros have their config published in two places: /boot/config-, for any installed kernel, or /proc/config.gz (cat /proc/config.gz | gunzip to read), for your running kernel.
Thanks for understanding the question and providing a concrete answer of a place to look! I will do this. :)