I would say your best bet is to try the Knoppix 5 DVD, which now comes with udev support. Up until then it was required to put static device nodes in the /dev directory for every possible piece of hardware that you may come accross. udev is designed to dynamically create a device node when it detects a particular piece of hardware.

It may be the case that Knoppix 4.0.2 does not have the right device node in /dev for your hardware, in that configuration.

If Knoppix 5 doesn't solve this for you then a remaster of the kernel with support for your device compiled in should work. I've also written a HOWTO for customising the kernel, if you need further assistance.