I recently went through this experience when I got the AC1300 Archer T3u USB Wifi adapter for an older laptop to boost the slow wifi speeds so that user experience would be much better. I found this link to support the Tp-Link Archer T3U USB Wifi adapter -->
https://tutorialforlinux.com/how-to-ins ... x-distros/
It was a good learning experience to git clone the latest driver and install the driver into MX-21 for the older laptop. And it worked! That was the great part. I used kernel 5.10 and then upgraded to 5.14 and it worked for both kernels. So for those who wanted to know if the T3U USB Wifi is supported on MX-21, yes it is!
Just don't forget to disable the built-in wifi ->
wlan0 (in my case), so upon reboot, the
wlan1 will take precedence.
Mixed of desktops and laptops, I have a Gravis Ultrasound Classic card (unfortunately its ISA-slot based) ... - I must be a dino.

Running on my DesktopPC -
MX-23.4 AHS with latest Kernel:
6.12.17-1-liquorix-amd64