Ok, thanks for that guys. Like I said, I'm a real newb :P I'll focus on the Net connection then and explain what I can (as you can see, might not be much)

I'm on an ADSL (512/12 connection using a Netcomm NB5Plus4 ADSL Modem and Router (Netcomm are an Australian manufacturer, so I've attached the link to it here). From the info I've pulled out of Win XP, my connection info is:
IP: 192.168.1.2, Subnet: 255.255.255.0, Default Gateway=DHCP=DNS=192.168.1.1, Physical Address: 00-11-D8-B5-37-7E (if that helps). Sorry for not putting up the info before, I thought it was some sort of security thing...

I tried to use the netcardconfig utility and when I allow DHCP it runs automatically and closes itself. The output from ifconfig is below:
knoppix@1[knoppix]$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:118:B5:37:7E
inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:d8ff:feb5:377e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2535 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2210393 (2.1 MiB) TX bytes:576835 (563.3 KiB)
Interrupt:22 Base address:0xa000

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:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:900 (900.0 b) TX bytes:900 (900.0 b)

Umm, what does this mean? Hope this is what you're after...

When I run the ADSL config utility it detects eth0, then tries the first task (times out), then tries it again (times out again), returns an error message ("check your cable settings etc") and then closes itself.

Hope the information helps, and many thanks for your patience. Let me know if there's further stuff I need to post.

As for Firefox, when it first starts up an update window opens saying "checking for compatability updates to your Extensions" and it just hangs.

As for my printer, that's kind of frustrating. Now I know linuxprinting.org has linux drivers available for my printer, but if I were to download them, where would I put them so that once I boot Knoppix it detects them and works? Would anywhere work so that I can load them manually?

Many thanks.