A couple people have asked privately if I got this to work. To save
someone else the hassle - no, I didn't!
I ended up using a different wifi stick. It's based on the Ralink
RT3070 chipset -- the $12 spent was well worth the time and
frustration saved! You should be able to find many suitable versions
on ebay by searching for the chipset. For memory I still had to
install a few packages and the firmware, but after that it worked
well.
Good luck!