Well, I got a wild hair the other day, and started reading into the "init" file located in the root directory of knoppix. Such things are usually way over my head........but in sifting through it, I can see why you ask some of the questions you do. You clearly know your way around. There are a number of references to the overlay, and combining it with the static file system, in the init file text. I can see where just one tiny hiccup could cause malfunction on a grand scale.

Out of curiosity, in the following excerpt from the init file, what is the character that I have drawn red arrows pointing to? Is that a reference to a binary file, or just a special character?

FWIW, the same problem "persists" (LOL) in knoppix version 9.1.

The optimist in me made me want to believe it might be a problem that they were working to correct. But that does not appear to be the case. 9.1 is just as slow with persistence.

It's nice to have up to date web browsers that don't nag me to be updated, and the bug in the Synaptic package manager appears to have been fixed. And they've re formulated the included bundle, a bit. prt scn no longer works by default and the app that recorded live video off the screen is completely gone

And, now there is a feature in Flash-Knoppix that claims to burn a bootable ISO back to a DVD disc, but I have not been able to get it to work with my DVD drive, as yet.