@tulsamike...

You say you did an advance search on synaptic. If you had a problem with flash player why not a search on that one, the main issue, before using sypaptic?

You have not caused any harm to your system. Rename the persistent and begin afresh. Follow what Mr. Schulz says.

You may like to follow my post on new knoppix users on sources.list. For installation of flash player plugin you may follow my posts on Flash player install where the easiest method to install the said plugin is explained clearly in post no.41.

You can happily recover whatever data and files you had in your old persistent, later.