Does anyone have any experience with a USB (extarnal) sound card using Elive? Were you successful? If so what USB sound card worked for you?
In your recent thread you mentioned that apparently sound worked well on that machine but solely the jack didn't....which would lead to the conclusion that the internal sound card functions quite well and only the jack isn't in order. One way or another, it looks like Apple doesn't really cater for using the jack in a bi-directional sense other than with its own specific hardware over firewire or USB.
This makes for some interesting insights (beware: it's 13 years ago!): MacBook Pro 13" (Mid 2010) audio jack - Apple Community
I'd recommend going the bluetooth (opposed to USB) route for input and output (Think headphones with mic) .
That way you'll be using the existing internal sound hardware and have a cheaper solution overall.
I'm thinking of going to Elementary OS for the MacBook; it recognizes the external mic. I don't understand why Debian Wheezy/Bullseye doesn't recognize the mic.
really tried guys
I really wish you guys would have solved this but the client needs results. I was gonna drop $10.00 for Elive but am too frustrated. I really tried guys. I won't go so far s to say that Elive is just another ACL (Another Crappy Linux) but it seems that there is no support for the MacBook 2010. I need results and since I can't get them here, I have to go elsewhere. I would've liked to evangelize for Elive but there are too many bugs. I can't bring users from Windows or Mac to Elive because of this. I have power users that deal in media and if they can't do what they need to do in Elive, I can;t argue with them.
I've no idea either but AFAIK you're the first here on the forum to bring that up and the info wasn't much more than what you gave i.e "it doesn't work".
Anyway given how Elementary has a fairly Apple-like desktop it could be just the right contender for the macbook, making your friend/client feel right at home. Be aware that Elementary itself is fairly basic making heavy use of external software sources like flatpaks ..... so keep on eye on available disk space and how certain applications slow things down or not on this aged hardware.
Well this is a community run forum and distro so, we'd have to do that with your aid and input given the shortage of macbook 2010 users. Maybe there's a lack of those users on the forum or simply that they never had the issue....continued input from your side could've solved that. If you do get it working a comparison could be justified. 
One thing you can be sure of: If other similar distros (Elementary=Ubuntu=Debian based) do have a working input jack then so will every other with a bit of effort and/or bug searching.
- Maybe it's just a matter of an older or newer kernel module or firmware.
Considering that you clearly mentioned that the sole issue you encountered on the macbook was the jack: Did you encounter new ones in usage or is that merely a pluralized comment born out of frustration?
Me personally if I encounter such a bug or issue; I dig my teeth in and wont stop until I've found what's causing it and what could resolve it.
Frankly, jumping to another distro over a single issue like that, would make me feel totally inadequate in handling Linux, taking the easy way out ....but then everyone has a different take or tolerance on that.
If you're doing this stuff on a commercial basis I'd recommend not experimenting on the clients machines while they're watching or wow! them by using "impermutable mode" for testing.
Find a distro that caters for your envisioned needs the best. Then really get into the nitty gritty, including the command line, of that chosen distro (can be more than one 
) so that you can actually quickly remedy encountered bugs or weird hardware issues on the go.
That way you can create a certain monetary value for your services, other than having a distro installer do all the work for you. A thing that your mentioned "power users that deal in media" are quite capable of themselves....but then they probably wouldn't be using hardware that old.
I'm sorry that Elive wasn't up to your expectations and also sorry to see you leave. If you, as you state, have access to a lot of different hardware your input or bug reports could prove to be quite invaluable.
Yeah, you're right. TBH I love Elive on my HP as my daily driver and as far as the MacBook is concerned, an external USB sound card will work for the user anyway
Yeah, we had to do it in the early days of mac/win so just gotta put in the work.
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Yeah but would require other firmware drivers (probably) than the existing hardware ..... pulling in potential bugs/issues as well as costing more money. On top it's old hardware that uses USB-2 so that might raise issues with modern products.
Considering the jack apparently works with Ubuntu/Elementary: It might be worth running a live version and checking to see what kernel and drivers they use ....... or firmware versions.
And see what "bluetooth" does for you albeit (depending on the use) that always has latency issues in my experience.
