i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

Several days have passed, including an upgrade with a new kernel and my KDE4 desktop is working fine.

...

It seems that the problems I used to have (crashing plasma when I put too many icons and widgets into the panels and desktop) are resolved. So, that "clean install" seems to have paid off.

BUT ... as I noted previously, my encrypted /home partition and my /windows partitions don't mount correctly unless I umount and mount them again. Which creates a bit of annoyance and delay at boot-up -- and also means I probably need to do yet another install. I also have an unresolved "parse error" on the repositories every time I run the YAST software installer.

I am not inclined to reinstall yet again. There is that noted theory of, "if it works don't fix it." And, more or less, everything works.

Regarding the networking -- I commented that my wireless networking is WORKING. Interestingly, only the kde3 networking packages are loaded and not the kde4 ones. Now you may wonder why I refer to that as though I had no hand in the decision as to which packages to install.

The answer is -- I didn't. At least, not that I know of. When OpSu installs, you are asked which desktop to install -- and installed kde4. Then, later after the system was up and running, I added KDE 3.5, Gnome and IceWM. So, I never specifically involved myself in the "decision" as to which networking packages would run. It may be possible that 3 and 4 are not compatible -- and that YAST removed the 4s and added the 3s when I installed KDE 3.5.

However, I don't believe that is the case. As far as I recall, the system was running with only KDE3.5 networking, even when the install had only the KDE4 desktop.

Now that I have discovered the KDE4 networking packages are not installed -- I AM NOT GOING TO INSTALL THEM. Maybe I will experiment with them on a different computer. But, as I whined about through a number of posts, KDE4 networking did not work correctly for me (broken kwallet interface, defective wireless, no static IP/DNS connections possible.)

Lastly (and changing topics) I can also update my post concerning my tethered blackberry (8703e).

The barry package is working with a USB connection -- and, it seems with the barry package, I may actually be getting a correctly updated resolv.conf.

Unfortunately, the connection seems to be somewhat temporary -- after awhile, my browser locks up -- and that's it until I reboot both the computer and the blackberry (by removing and replacing the battery).

Way too much trouble.

OTOH, tethering the blackberry via bluetooth is working fine, with the exception that it does NOT correctly update resolv.conf. As noted in a prior post, this results in a live internet connection -- but no ability to browse the web. So, what I have done is created a spare backup "resolv.conf" (which I called "resolv.conf.opendns") to which I added the two OpenDNS ip addresses as nameservers. So, I added these two lines:

"nameserver 208.67.222.222"
"nameserver 208.67.220.220"

I added to "my system" a short script as follows:

"rm resolv.conf"
"cp resolv.conf.opendns resolv.conf"

And I run that script via a desktop icon, with the advanced parameter, "run as different user". It then runs as root, asking for the root password, replaces the empty resolv.conf created by pppd upon blackberry startup with the one with the opendns name servers. (One could also use the nameservers provided by the pppd script/blackberry connection -- but the problem is, I'm unsure whether those will always be the same. So, I would have to manually edit resolv.conf.)

It's necessary to get the blackberry connection running via pppd before copying the resolv.conf, or else pppd will simply overwrite the one we need to use.

So ... that's my weekend update.