Soundmodem program on Suse 9.1

Does anyone have a link to some good docs on how to setup/configure soundmodem? I got the program via yast but am already running into problems. First thing I found is that the man pages are so minimal as to be useless. Second thing is when I try to run soundmodemconfig I get an immediate error about "can't open display". I have no idea where to start on this one. Should I get the latest sources from the web and compile them or is there a simple work around for this problem with the official package from Suse? Gale KC4PL