I like LXDE and GNOME less KDE, but I cannot live with an issue without knowing the root cause and maybe the solution. In this case I feel positive to boot native KDE to try k* applications like kmail and discover them. I also like such a distribution which is comprehensive of several desktop environments you can choose and so full of applications.
I'd like also to use the same persistency I use for ubuntu based distributions: I have a partition called home-rw which is mounted as \home. Do you think it is possible also for KNOPPIX something like home=/dev/sdb8/KNOPPIX ? (I read some warnings on it and I am afraid to destroy the content)
shutdonwn is OK for me

regards
benny