For the love of USB make my cablemodem work!

Ok, I'm a total newbie to linux, I found Knoppix and was seriously impressed by the distribution, and I started to get annoyed by the slow CD and not being able to install new apps, so I made a brand new partition and installed Knoppix in its new home.

The problem is 1) The USB modem is no longer recognized. I know it still looks roughly as before (eth0). I tried PPPOE but that didn't work, because even thought my laptop has a PCMCIA slot, it doesn't seem to get recognized automagically. So either solution would be fine for me, making the USB recognize and use the Webstar cable modem or the PCMCIA detect my 3COM card.

2) Sound was always a little problem, but not so much because I could use the knoppix sound configuration utility which got erased during the HD install. I have no clue where to turn to configure it, but I remember all the settings. So... where do I go?

3) Same with the mouse. Knoppix always detects the integrated PS/2 mouse, even thought I want to use a serial, external 3 button mouse. I tried using gpmmouseconfig (correctly spelled?), but to no avail. I had pointed it to /dev/ttyS0 and tried various protocols. Nothing worked.

I want to go back in Knoppix and use it as much as possible but without the internet, sound, and good control...