Well I don't know if it will work for this situation. You could use alien to convert
the rpm to a deb package and then install the driver using dpkg.

Go here: http://www.kitenet.net/programs/alien/ to read about alien.
I have used alien to convert and install some software and as I said I don't know
if it will work for your driver but it might.

The basic steps are at the command line ( a terminal window) alien -d /home/myname/thepackageIwanttoconvert
Of course you have to use the actual file names you have. if the driver converts then you do dpkg -i "myconvertedpackage"

The easier way might be to just install a later version of knoppix or debian testing, but that's your call.

Good Luck! Let me/this commmunity know if it works