However, we have added an `--upstream` or `-u` flag to lsb_release like other Linux-based OSes to point to an upstream release if the downstream release is not supported. I believe this has been adopted for installers of tools like Ruby and Node.

For the microphone not working, you'd have to check what's going on in Pulseaudio and ALSA - both of these can be problematic at times.

It seems that the poster doesn't have a Linux compatible laptop so eOS or any other distro won't work well.

This is generally fixed by installing "non-free" firmware. Some distros may also work better than others, e.g. some hardware is better supported in Fedora than Debian or its derivatives.

There really is no difference between hardware support on Debian and Fedora given that the kernels remain the same - this isn't the case most of the time of course as Debian maintains stability whilst Fedora is very close to upstream most of the time.

IIRC, there was such a chipset with a PowerVR GPU. In that case, you'd pretty much be SOL. You'd have to run Windows 10 and hope that a from-scratch install of W10 can pick up the proper drivers from the "updates" channel - which I wouldn't be sure about. Most other hardware is far better behaved.

It does not, sadly. There is an unofficial third party repo but it’s very much unsupported by both Debian and elementary.

for a time they gave away windows 10 for free for anyone with 8. all those people who upgraded all have the same serial so there are probably millions of computers with it. this simply associates yer VM/computer with that serial and goes and activates. So its definitely not the most legal thing in the world, but its not like you are going to get caught since you are using the same serial number as millions of other folks.

Might be worth it if they're heavily discounted.