Hello, I did not try KDE3 on OpenSuse, but I guess that automounting/unmouting should work out ot the box, since it's using HAL. If not, I think it's a bug for KDE3.
I also think it's KDE3 bug. Well, automounting works, but when I try to unmount the drive in media:/ I get error claiming that I have no permissions to do so.
About network management, I don't think we have anything usable yet in TDE. On my side, I'm using gnome's nm-applet for this purpose.
I also use nm-applet. The problem is that when I ran it under KDE3 it seemed crippled, as it was unable to record new connections (both user and system wide connections) and send any commands to NetworkManager. Coping configuration files from old installation to appropriate dir in /etc made these conectios available, but still this was not what I expected :/ Anyway, if nm-applet works in TDE and allows to add and control connections without any problem then I'm happy.
That I guarantee, seeing as it was the only option under Debian Wheezy/Ubuntu Precise for a while. Note that the Ubuntu Precise nm-applet version has a bug that randomly renders it unusable; see below.
If you can wait some more days, we are about to release TDE 3.5.13.1, an updated 3.5.13 version, which will be available for OpenSuse 12.2 and Ubuntu Precise, among others.
Promise? If so, then I can wait, though I was desperate to get my system up and running till the end of week. I am still considering Debian, though I'm a bit reluctant to go with Squeeze since it will soon become oldstable.
We are building Wheezy packages for R14, and I have successfully booted TDE on Wheezy/armel as of a few days ago, so upgrading from Squeeze when Wheezy is released shouldn't be too difficult.
So you can try it and post feedback.
Oh believe me, you will hear me complaining.... :)
BTW. What are these problems in LTS 12.04 that you mentioned Tim? I have some friends using this Ubuntu and i didn't hear any complaints from them.
When used over almost any kind of remote connection Xlib segfaults on XRandR access, rendering the system almost unusable. Add in the nm-applet icon randomly disappearing when used outside of Unity (including under XFCE), two different GTK toolkits in use (v2 and v3), and a few other issues and the overall system begins to feel very unpolished and downright buggy.
Hope this helps!
Tim