I'm a newbie to Knoppix (but not to GNU/Linux) and only have used Knoppix 3.2, but I think you have made an incorrect assumption. From my limited experience, Knoppix does not boot with the network enabled.

If you will go into the Knoppix menu, there is a configure of an internet item that will present you with a dialogue for setting up the network. You can opt for DHCP if that is running on your network, or you can manually set the host IP address, name server, and gateway.

There was no need to specify the NIC driver, so the autodectect must have taken care of that much.

I'm not near a system I can just reboot to run Knoppix and give you the exact line of menu selections. You might check the FAQ's and see if it is already listed there.

I hope this is enough to get you on the Internet

Pat

PS, you may want to save your configuration to be able to restore your network configuration the next time you boot Knoppix.