MacBook Air network driver

Hello, everyone!

I was wondering if any of you could help me understand this issue a bit better. I have a 2012 MacBook Air in which I’m trying to install a lightweight version of Linux, but there’s no way I can connect it to a wired internet (I’d need to buy a eth adapter), and no desktop environments aside from KDE seem to recognize my router. I believe that none of the other DE’s have preinstalled the network adapter driver required by a MacBook Air that old… can any of you help me understand how I could create a standalone package that I can put into another usb drive and install it from, say, Linux Mint?

Thank you all so much!