Help streamlining Suse linux 10.0

I am sorry if this has been discussed before on this site(most sites will make a Big deal over that rather than just helping or giving a link). But i am very new to linux an i am needing some help making it react faster and do the same stuff as i can on windows. I really like the way things are done on linux but it is reacting somuch slower than my windows does. i have all the drivers Nvidia offers but i still cant get it to run as fast. any tips towards that would be a big help plus i am having a problem istalling programs, sometimes it works perfectly and other times (the majority it gives me an error and says it can't finish compiling. If i use a RPM it does fine but most programs only have RPMs for FC or Redhat. plus i have heard that it is much better for performance to compile. my biggest thing right now is that i want to watch .MPG movies and .wmv movies I tryed to install Mplayer with the GUI and it says that i dont have GTK Devel WTF? its there i have it installed and it it the most up to date so i tryed to install it without the GUI and it gets to a point after about 5 mins and it errors out and says it cant exit some folder and it wont go any further. that is about the furthest i have gotten on 90% of files i have tryed to install. it gets real anoying when i get going and dont have any problems, i have actually forgotten i am using linux at times then BAM i hit a brick wall cause i cant get something to work. I tryed installing UT2004 and it wont recognize when i put in disk 2 it keeps asking for it. :blackeye:

First.. Forget about compiling stuff yourself unless you have a decent framework for it (a la Gentoo or BSD) or some more experience. Often you have to fix the sources, spend hours trying to resolve dependencies and the program management afterwards is a nightmare. The speed avantage is more theoretical than practical and besides, you lose so much time compiling the thing, that it would take you years to make up for the lost time :p

Install and configure APT for SuSE: http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/
This will give you access to lots of SuSE RPMs and will greatly improve dependency management and upgrading. If you like point-and-click, install Synaptic too.

What exactly is slow? Firefox is slow indeed - use Opera instead. Use a smaller screen resolution, turn off some desktop effects like sounds, animated menus, fading in/out etc.

ya i use firefox mabe i will switch to another, i have apt now i just need to read up on using it. the sreen res is 1600X1200 and i have not turned anything off so they are all probably on.

must be something FUBAR with my gnome install cause i switched to KDE and my PC flys now.

Makes a certain amount of sense. SuSE is to KDE as RH/FC is to Gnome.

Traditionally, SuSE has sponsored the various KDE development projects & while I have no definite proof, would strongly suspect SuSE is optimized for KDE.

RH has pretty much done the same for Gnome.

If you like Gnome, try FC out for size. I personally much prefer KDE, and this is one of the reasons I use SuSE.