whats a good linux distro for older hardware? that support netgear sticks?

I was given a refurbished computer to tinker with and it works but it's outdated and rather than spending cash to fix it up I rather much install a lightweight Linux distro like puppy or lxle problem I'm facing is none of the distros I've tried support the netgear wifi adapter it uses and I can't plug directly into the router so it's difficult downloading/installing all the packages i'd need to get it working with the da thing.

it's a wnda3100 v 3 stick.

Anyway I'm fairly newish to Linux & I'm not entirely sure how to get the adapter to be recognized can anyone suggest a lightweight distro that supports this stick or at the very least easy to setup. Like I said I can't plug directly into the router but I can download packages i'd need from my windows machine and transfer em over.

I've tried the latest mint, lxle and my old backtrack Iso none of which recognizes the device

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