After the installation earlier it was time to get KDE4 up. I’ve noticed that OpenSUSE has been one of the first ones to provide KDE4 packages in 2007 itself. It has a strong and large KDE team. First I had to update OpenSUSE. This involved adding three repositories using zypper:
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/repo/oss/ suse-oss
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/repo/non-oss/ suse-non-oss
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/update/10.3/ suse-update
as explained in http://en.opensuse.org/Zypper/Usage. But wait, don’t do that! download.opensuse.org seems to be the default mirror and possibly a large number of people are using it without realising that it terribly slows down things for everyone. The right thing to do would be to use a mirror close to you. Look at http://en.opensuse.org/Mirrors_Released_Version and use the right one. So, with the above supported official repositories I updated my system, it required two updates – one to fix zypper and the next to boot a newer kernel and other libs. Next task was to fix mp3 support in Amarok’s xine. This required the Packman repo:
zypper ar http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.3/ suse-packman
– note that I’ve chosen a different mirror from the one mentioned by default in http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories. I kind of understand that OpenSUSE (like Fedora) are very careful when it comes to patented/licensed stuff unlike Kubuntu where mp3 support and the like can be easily pulled in from non-free repos in the same mirror. I haven’t added anymore repositories as I fear breakage. For KDE4 I added the repositories as listed in http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/Repositories. Again, I used a mirror. That means I couldn’t use the one-click .ymp installer. I manually looked into the .ymp files and installed it off of Yast2. If you’re running an amd64 installation like I am, you’ll probably encounter “RPM dependency hell” when you’re trying to install a KDE4 package through Yast. Fear not. In YaST2’s menu, click on Package > All Packages > Update if newer version available. Do that first and then modify your KDE4-DEFAULT.ymp to use your mirror site and install off of it. Now I shall talk a bit about KNode – a newsreader for KDE. While I love its functionalities (mark cross-posts read in other groups on their first encounter, …) more than any other newsreaders out there, it’s funny and annoying while I’m configuring it the first time. I’m referring to its Account Setup dialog box: 
So, here’s when the fun starts. Focus on the “Server” text field and try pressing TAB. What do you expect? Go to the “Port” field? No! Keep pressing TAB and go crazy >_>
Next, I tried OpenSUSE’s Akregator. Earlier on Kubuntu it was nice reading the various default feeds (mostly planets of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, KDE, Debian…). OpenSUSE’s default feed selection looks good. Notice the security feeds! (Look carefully, “Affected products”, OpenSUSE isn’t listed!) 
That’s all for now! More later.