amsn (beginner)

[Phatmonkey]

Have you tried GAIM which is in Knoppix? Another would be kopete. I've never used amsn, but debian packages install with:

dselect update
apt-get -s install amsn

(remove the -s for simulation if output looks ok)
This would have downloaded and installed the package in one go.

As you already have the package you can do in the directory it's in:

dpkg -i packagename

where exactly do you put these commads when your running knoppix off the cd? do you even need them