I'm currently on Knoppix, and must access a wireless network with both WPA-PSK and WEP enabled, with the SSID not being broadcast. I'm completely new at wireless networking on Linux, and would really appreciate help on getting the connection up.

Also, my wireless chipset is on, but I don't know if it is working.

1. It can't be both WPA and WEP. It's one or the other.

2. For WPA, you'll need a program called wpa_supplicant. The program and the documents: http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/

3. Turn the SSID broadcast on. Turning it off provides no security as the SSID is still announced at times and the radio is still visible. SSID broadcast disable can make it difficult to associate, especially with WPA.

Well, according to my PDA and the same laptop when it's booted into Windows, the authentication is WPA-PSK and the data encryption is WEP.

So if none of the drivers work, returning errors, then I won't be able to connect?

I already copied the output of wpa_passkey into /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.

WPA is a combination of two things: network access control via authentication and encryption. WEP is the algorithm, but in the context of WPA, dymanic keys are used and changed long before any know attacks could obtain the key. The authentication type used with WPA can vary. In your case, it's a pre-shared key - a password, if you will.

To successfully connect to a WPA network, you'll need:
A wireless card
A working driver
A supplicant (handles the authentication and key exchanges)

If you can't load the driver for your card without errors, then no, you can't expect to use a WPA network.