My comments below your questions in this post.



I tried from the launch bar: Knoppix -> Network/ Internet -> Network card configuration
are you plugging a cable into your PC or trying wireless?

It then asks me if it should try dhcp broadcasting, but that doesn't work.
Again, physical cable for using the network or wireless?

Then I am asked for
*3. Braodcast adress (Not sure about that, is that the same as my IP? What should I type here?)
default broadcast is generally like this:
xxx.xxx.xxx.255 where xxx is the first three sets of numbers from your IP address
Example: If you have an IP address of 10.10.10.199 then your broadcast would be
10.10.10.255, if your network team used a default method

*5. Nameserver (What is that? What should I type here?)
you should be able to use your DNS server IP address for that

I also have two bonus questions (please bear with me):
1. How do I disable automatic hardware detection while booting? Is there something similar to an autoexec.bat I have to edit? If so, where does the new entry belong to?
Did you try failsafe at boot? It is one of the options when booting the LiveCD

2. Is there something similar to a cisco client in linux? It would be great to have wireless internet in the library.
Are you using the Cisco aironet or what? Wireless is very possible with Knoppix, but we need more information on what your hardware is:
USB, PCMCIA, cardbus, etc.