I've remastered knoppix 5.1.1 and 5.3.1 following both how-to's on the wiki and have not had this problem.

After running apt-get update

you are advised not to run ad-get dist-upgrade otherwise something will break. I'm not sure what is breaking the
system in your case, but you must be updating too many programs.

Start with the Remastered CD version of knoppix 5.3.1 by alpha systems in Japan. Change the locale to US english
and then follow this how-to from the wiki

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Remaster..._Install_HowTo

The link for the remastered 5.3.1 CD version is on this thread:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117860

look halfway down the thread for the link by maybeway36 the Japanese 5.3.1 version already contains
Kde 3.5.9, openoffice and kernel 2.4.24 in addition to LCAT acceleration and compiz fusion.

You may be able to get by by just installing w32codecs and streamtuner for playback.
Hope that helps.