It has occurred to me that a roll-your-own live CD, like the bootable business card (http://www.lnx-bbc.org) may make it easier to incorporate such additional drivers. However, it could be easier for such short-term modifications just to remaster the Knoppix image and slip them in somewhere.
Problem for installing the atmeldrivers is the fact that you need to have the kernel-source files (in my case about 130 mb). I think you need to implement them in the remastered Knoppix, but I haven't tried as my Debian works fine for me.

The only thing I couldn't get working is the monitoring mode (Airsnort), but it seems like it is not possible with the drivers.