Back to trying to make the SUSE 9.0 behave on the laptop.

Played with the resolution (to 1024 X 768) in SaX2 (not a virtual 
resolution tweak, but it was worth a try ;-) ) and ended up with a *full 
screen* on the Toshiba laptop. No more small screen with thick black 
border. Thought I had tried that before, but I think what happened is I 
originally selected the wrong HZ setting, and perhaps I was spared the 
agony of permanently screwing up my screen by some built-in safety 
protocol. Just a wild newbie guess, and I have no investment in that 
being the answer. S*** ... maybe I just didn't save my changes the first 
time.

I now have sounds after installing the entire Gnome system. That's all I 
did ... nothing else. Sounds are now working in KDE as well.

Now to find a DVD player that works ... Kaffeine gives an unknown error 
message.

Hope this helps some other SUSE laptop user and thanks to all for the 
advice.

Rick