Recently I installed SuSE 9.3 on my desktop pc and tablet pc. The tablet works great (including wacom drivers), but nothing but trouble on the desktop. I did quite a bit of reading to learn what HAL was about. Unfortunately, it hasn't helped me get k3b working on my almost 4 yr old desktop (PIII, 850mhz intel, 128 ram, 160 gb hdd, multi-boot, 8 partitions). As far as the session mgr/Hal issues - a hard reboot lands me (logged in as a user) in a "plug n play" device enviroment and cd's auto-mount as they should. Problem is starting k3b: it hangs at the splash screen not able to find any devices. Also called up k3b from the konsole as root - Error when starting k3b from konsole as root: DCOPClient::attachInternal. Attach failed Could not open network socket DCOPClient::attachInternal. Attach failed Could not open network socket kbuildsycoca running... KWrited - Listening on Device /dev/pts/2 grandenetworks:/home/me # libhal.c 767 : org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply raised "No reply within specified time" I close the session and log back in. It seems kde disables Hal and now I have two icons on the desktop for cdrom and cdrecorder that results in "only root can mount" error msg when reading data. K3b still is not able to talk to devices/media. I've checked for latest packages, including installing from packman site, source pkg, and apt-get. No go. I am an average linux user - not a geek. In fact, although I hate to admit it, I'm a 50 yr old granny, and the desktop pc was my first pc EVER. I was tired of the never ending problems with windows, and was hoping to get a grip on linux but could use some help. Point me in any direction - I'm not afraid to rtfm. TIA Regards Elise