One thing I forgot on your hd install:

kdm will have to be started up at bootup, that's what the link in /etc/rc5.d does, but if you make the link and leave everything else alone you cannot get into X at all, so you must also do this as root:

chmod a-x /etc/init.d/xsession

this makes the stock auto-login to kde for user knoppix non-functional, so that when you boot up the computer you will always get the kdm login screen, then you will be able to login locally, or through your network. You will also have the choice of which desktop environment or window manager you wish to run. If you are getting a login window with user knoppix and root shown, etc. then kdm is already running, but may need to be restarted (or reboot).

ssh will still function with kdm setup, kdm is for non-secure remote X logins, and ssh is for secure console logins (you can use ssh for secure X logins but I'm not going to go there, it's beyond my understanding)
To have ssh started up at boot again make a link in /etc/rc5.d to /etc/init.d/ssh like this (as root):

ln -s /etc/init.d/ssh /etc/rc5.d/S20ssh

HTH

rock