Once the updates had installed, I happened to try to burn a DVD onto a DVD+R DL. Part of my effort to backup mine and my kids DVD's. Well, k3b was bombing with a bunch of error messages as was the Control Center. I was starting to get pretty ticked. Next, the kicker suffered a problem and I started losing icons in my bottom panel, so I decided to try rebooting and saw on the splash screen that I had been upgraded to KDE 3.5.

So, how is this new KDE 3.5? It has been a mix of good news and bad news. First though, I was able to burn that DL DVD using k3b, so that was good. I've noticed a few little changes here and there like k3b was updated. Kontact reported it was updated as well, but I haven't noticed anything different. I now have a window that pops up asking me what I want to do when it detects I've inserted a CD or DVD - I haven't decided whether I like that or not, but I imagine for most folks it is a welcome change. On my desktop, I had an item for the CD-ROM drive, but whenever I clicked on it, I would always get permission errors. Well, 3.5 appears to have fixed that problem (I even added an item for the DVD drive as well).

Perhaps the best news of all though is that it is finally detecting my scanner properly. Actually, my scanner is part of my HP OfficeJet 6110 multi-function machine. It has always been a struggle to get both scanning and printing working properly and at the same time. Actually, I don't think I've had scanning capability since my upgrade to SuSE 9.3. Using the SuSE hardware tool, I was able to go in and it detected the scanner and despite one hiccup, got it configured and working. Yeah!

Now the bad news. It has hosed my Skype. I can get the "real" Skype working long enough to make one call after some searching and finding the command "artsdsp -m skype". However, I cannot get my Skype hijacker to work now. It dials and connects, but I get no sound on my end (nor is the mic working for those listening on the other end). I get pretty much the same result with Gnomemeeting - it will connect, but starts throwing a bunch of errors about the sound device not working. I'll have to keep working on this as I am finding that being able to place phone calls via the PC is very nice.

Now if SuSE would just make the OO 2.01 or 2.02 upgrade available. I haven't really dug in to see what else I should be able to do with KDE 3.5 vs. 3.4, but it seems like it is a pretty good upgrade. Changes I've noted so far have been small but significant.