It could be KDE...or not. I would try a newer version of Knoppix than 3.8.2 and see if that resolves the issue. You may also be able to disable the touchpad in the bios if they have that option available. In any event, 3.8.2 is rather dated and I'm sure many issues have been corrected since then. There used to be a cheatcode for some systems with a bios issue: "pci=irqmask=0x0e98". Look at the cheatcodes and see if one resolves your issue. http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes