That was my comment and it was to indictate that when using Knoppix with wireless devices for the first time, like with windows, it is easier to connect to an access point that has no protections (wep, wpa) turned on. When the user becomes experienced enough to understand how to connect and/or writes a script to automate the connection, then the user can turn wep/wpa on the access point and see if it is possible to get the wireless device to use wep or wpa supplicant. This "turn-off-the-security", then test, then "turn-security-back-on" assumes that you have another working wired/wireless enabled PC (windows or linux, it doesnt matter) that can login to the access point to change the settings OR 1 PC which a dual boot between a known working configuration and your test environment.

As for your wpa problem, my suggestion is to use a distro that has more developers wokring on the wlan portion of the distro. I love knoppix and I would not be here if I didn't enjoy tinkering around with tech, but sometimes I just want the wireless device to work and I do not want to fiddle with compiling ndiswrapper or writing my own wlan configuration scripts. My choices of a on-hard-disk distro is to Suse 10.0 and Ubuntu 5.10. Suse 10.1 will be out within a couple of weeks and Ubuntu 6.06 will be out around June 1. I still use Knoppix 4.02 and DVD 5.0 as a live cd/dvd.