Well I finally got this to work. In case anyone is trying to do the same thing.
The main problem is that although I could make a new user and set the
permissions to root, sudo, etc. the Knoppix menu did no recognize any user
not named knoppix. So when I tried to save configs through that menu it just
hung or failed.
1. I logged in as knoppix 2 myconfig. blah blah
This way I started the session through KDM which gave me the option to
logout and log back in without killing the session or rebooting.
2. I copied the entire /home/knoppix dir to /home/sunnyb recursed.
cp -R /home/knoppix /home/sunnyb just as Bamarob said.
3. I chown'd the entire dir to sunnyb
chown -R sunnyb /home/sunnyb
4. I logged out as knoppix and logged back in as sunnyb.
This is where the Knoppix menu did not let me use the save configs.
I had to GKsu the saveconfig command and mkpersistenthome command
to save the configs and a persistent home dir.
5. Now I was able to log in with the knoppix 2 myconfig= blah blah
command and at the root prompt I used KDM which gives me the option
of logging in as knoppix, sunnyb or root.

This may be as close as I can get without remastering / making a live CD
from the session but it works and now my local network recognizes
the machine because I am logged in as sunnyb. Now I just have to change
the paths in all of the shell scrips again and it will be OK.

Thanks all.