Can't make AWUS036H work in Ubuntu 12.10
Solution 1:
If you need to use the USB instead of the internal device, I suggest you blacklist the driver for the internal device. That will allow you to keep the switch on and use the USB. It has a working driver, rtl8187 and has created an interface wlan1.
Find out the driver for the internal with:
sudo lshw -C network
Find the part that refers to 'driver=' associated with wlan0, the internal. Then blacklist it:
sudo su
echo "blacklist <some_driver>" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit
Plug in the USB, reboot and it should be working. If in doubt about the correct driver to blacklist, post your findings and we'll help.