How do I install this driver on Ubuntu?

what version of Ubuntu are you using? 10.04 – 10.10 etc?

reading up if you have > upgrade to 10.10 that device is supported by default and should be as simple as plug and play…I know linux used to be terrible with hardware support but to be honest that’s changed…failing that plug into the router via cable and then let it get the updates and activate proprietary drivers if the option is given to you…

this fixed my problems I had with my aspire d250 which wifi didn’t work out the bag, plugged in and it got the drivers no worries…

NDis wrapper isn’t too hard to use, assuming you have it installed you need to open the windows driver like an archive in ubuntu then drag one of the files into Ndis (just google for which file I don’t remember but there will only be about 4 or so to try)

@Tobotron It’s still 10.04. Maybe I’ll have to upgrade. Is 10.10 stable yet?

For ndiswrapper you’ll want to install ndisgtk, so you can just use that application to find the driver and select it to install.

However, if it is supported in 10.10 you could surely consider that. It’s been out since October, and is supposed to be stable since then, but if anything would’ve been seriously wrong with it that would definitely have been known and fixed by now. However, what you should also consider is that 10.04 is a Long Term Support release, meaning that it will receive security updates for three years as opposed to eighteen months, as is the case for a normal release like 10.10.

First, update Ubuntu. You don’t need to upgrade your Ubuntu version, just use Update Manager to get your package updates before proceeding.
This should fix the problem as there is an existing bug against the kernel relating to this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/624339
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-nettool/+question/121473

Updating your packages should fix the problem. If the device works properly in 10.10 then it should also work in 10.04. If upgrading the packages does not fix the problem, please go the bug report page (the first of the two links I posted above) and click the “this bug affects me” button.

DO NOT attempt to use the drivers supplied by ASUS, they are stale, broken code. Even though it is an ASUS device, the chipset is a RaLink product and therefore the RaLink driver (rt2870sta) is the correct one to use. You should probably get rid of ndiswrapper too, unless you are using it for something else as well.
The rt2870 driver is in the kernel mainline and is installed in Ubuntu by default. The reason why the device is not automagically detected and the correct module loaded is that the ASUS device has a chipset ID which does not appear in the list of “aliases” that apply to the rt2870sta driver. This should be fixed in newer versions of the kernel. I can’t verify this myself since I applied a more complicated fix earlier. I can tell you that my USB-N13 still works.
If your kernel version > 2.6.32–28 (use uname -a to find this information) and the device does not work, I recommend burning a livecd of 10.10 and testing the device in that environment. Or you might consider just going ahead with the upgrade to 10.10 on your system. In any case, please let me know if the device does not function with the current kernel version.

Thanks for the help. I’ve tabled the issue for now – it was a dual-boot and Mom hates Linux anyway – but I’ll get back to it sometime.