Re: What did they think they were doing?
we seem to be back to the bad old days of Linux distros not playing well with certain wireless technologies
It's a bit OT, but Linux distros never ceased to have trouble with certain wireless cards. Namely older adapters from broadcom are a PITA. If the wireless module is on a mini-PCIE card, it might be easy and not too expensive to swap it against something newer that is faster and has better driver support.
On the other hand, driver hell is not limited to Linux, of course. It can be a challenge to find suitable drivers under Windows, too. And then you often have the added bonus of downloading them from a dodgy third party site that might or might not be adding a few "surprises".
As for updating to windows 10, if you already have working drivers for wIndows 7 or windows 8, things should be more or less smooth. In theory, at least.