Yes, I'm having similar trouble, which I can reproduce easily:
1) unpack the compressed filesystem from KNOPPIX_3.2_2003-04-18
2) chroot; mount /proc; tweak resolv.conf; make a minimal (but sufficient?) sources.list:
[code]
Is my sources.list _too_ minimal? What else should be there? Where does mount-aes come from?

TIA
Exactly the same errors I had.
All I can tell you is how I fixed it. I edited the standard sources.list to get an unstable distribution (or install apt-spy);
# The following site was benchmarked at 38.71 kB/s
deb ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ unstable main

# The following site was benchmarked at 37.16 kB/s
deb ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/debian/ unstable contrib

# The following site was benchmarked at 36.71 kB/s
deb ftp://ftp.icm.edu.pl/pub/Linux/debian/ unstable non-free "
then when I upgraded packages I had no problems. Of course if you want a stable distribution this isnt going to appeal to you. What the underlying cause is I have no idea - perhaps mixed stable/unstable packages in Knoppix? dunno.
Good luck