how do i get internet on an old laptop that has only wifi?

Hi

i recently tried to install linux for the first time in my life and revive an old laptop with it. so i was looking for a fairly lightweight distro. also a problem is that this laptop doesnt have a wired network connection since its broken. i can only use wifi.

i tried lubuntu but there was no network connections so i tried its bigger brother ubuntu. i dont know if thats considered lightweight but i was hoping for more drivers. that didnt work either. then i found coreplus which appearently is great for computers with only wifi but i couldnt get that to work because it was not all that newbe friendly.

i then found a driver package for my hardware but couldnt install it because the tutorial was for some package manager tool i dont have although it was a ubuntu site (i still have that installed). and i coudnt work out how to install that tool.

so now i have ubuntu installed and the driver package on a usb stick but dont know how to install that. everything i find on the internet is how i can install things directly via internet but i dont have that ...

any ideas?

thanks in advance!

rob

ps.: i considered linux from scratch but i would have to read a whole fucking lot of stuff i dont really have time for :/