Well seeing as it hasn't worked on any system I've tried it on, intuitively I didn't think the problem was going to be system-specific but rather something inherent in Knoppix.

My router is a wired Belkin 4 port router. My computer connects to it via a belkin 5 port gigabit switch and my laptop has a direct connection. They both have built-in onboard intel lan cards but the one on the pc is gigabit whereas the laptop one is fast ethernet. I think it's trivial to mention my Internet connection is from a cable modem in my set-top box. I can't even get local networking to work, so I'm sure it has little to do with my Internet connection.

The following is the output from ifconfig -

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:A6:F0:A0:11
inet addr:192.168.2.5 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:64 Metric:1
RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:786 (786.0 b) TX bytes:940 (940.0 b)
Base address:0xcf80 Memory:fe9e0000-fea00000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1100 (1.0 KiB) TX bytes:1100 (1.0 KiB)



Then netcardconfig gives me this...

Sending DHCP broadcast from device eth0Failed.
Hit return to exit.

Hope this helps.