Thank you for that information. I did install a non-free iso edition but still no wifi.
When I see a red error on the screen within all the text that is running it reads "Failed to start Raise network interfaces."
The link you gave me was an interesting read and I also went to other links.
At age 67 I still enjoy learning. My son who works in the field for a computer company (network stuff right now) says I put other people my age to shame at what I know about computing.
But also at age 67 I don't have the patience to play around as much, I expect things to work correctly by now, the wifi issue has been going on far to many years and I really don't want to deal with it....be a social compact or whatever. To me a computer is an appliance and just as I wouldn't expect my oven to not heat because of a social compact, I feel the same about computing.
Other than the Asus I have about 5 computers and most of them I've been using Mint or LMDE. Maybe a straight out Debian on one of them? I have a new MOBO to install on a laptop and that would be a good candidate.
So after that long dissertation I can say that I don't think I'm spending any more time trying to get this Asus toy to work with Debian. Ubuntu Mate works fine, Fedora works fine and those two will do for now.
Again thanks for your help.