I'm not a Debian user, but have a read of
this - looks to be a pretty good synopsis.
I bought a TP-Link dongle a while back because it had good range and was "Linux supported". Rubbish - they produced a driver (with source) back in the dark ages but have never updated it as the kernel evolved. Fortunately the community on github have picked up the reins; you just have to find some-one with an interest in your chipset. Recently there have been a lot of changes - since say 4.11.
For Laptops I insist on Intel wifi - at least they talk to the kernel devs and have a blob that Linus is prepared to accept. Much nicer solution.
