USB driver problem with Yocto Dunfell on DE0 Nano

I am building Yocto Dunfell with a now nuked linux-altera RT branch (linux-altera-ltsi-rt-4.14.126-ltsi-rt) and I am having trouble with USB support. Particularly I need to be able to utilize a USB to Ethernet adapter. A very common adapter that should be supported: ASIX A88179
Additionally I suppose that I could use a different kernel but its absolutely imperative that I have the PREEMPT-RT patch, so I am open to suggestions there if a different kernel for the de0-nano would solve my problem.

dmesg shows the following when I plug in the adapter

usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using dwc2.
usb 1-1: New USB device found ...
usb 1-1: New USB device strings ...
usb 1-1: Product: AX88179
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ...
usb 1-1: Serial Number ...

ifconfig output shows no new eth or usb adapter.

Looking into /lib/modules/$(KERNEL_VER)/kernel/drivers shows no usb folder.

Is there a way to download with apt or manually install the necessary drivers ?

Below is my local.conf if it helps.

GCCVERSION = "linaro-4.9"
SDKGCCVERSION = "linaro-4.9"
DEFAULTTUNE = "cortexa9hf-neon"

# Set the preferred kernel
PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel = "linux-altera-ltsi-rt"
PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-altera-ltsi-rt = "4.14.126%"

# Set the preferred uboot
PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/bootloader = "u-boot-socfpga"
PREFERRED_VERSION_u-boot-socfpga = "v2021.04"
UBOOT_EXTLINUX_FDT_default = "../socfpga_cyclone5_de0_sockit.dtb"

# Package feed for APT mirror
PACKAGE_FEED_URIS = "http://<local-machine-ip>:5678"

# RootFS settings
IMAGE_FSTYPES = "${INITRAMFS_FSTYPES}"
PACKAGE_EXCLUDE = "busybox-syslog"
IMAGE_ROOTFS_SIZE = "50000"
IMAGE_FSTYPES += " jffs2"
JFFS2_ERASEBLOCK = "0x10000"
TOOLCHAIN_TARGET_TASK_append = " kernel-devsrc"

# Set Default host name
hostname_pn-base-files = "system01"

# Additional packages/recipes
IMAGE_INSTALL_append += "   apt \
                            libstdc++ \
                            nano \
                            kernel-modules \
                            usbutils \
                            pciutils \
                            openssh \
                            "