When managing services on OpenSuse 11.3 the best way is to use the service command.
One example is to synchronize the time with an Internet time server. I have NTP setup so I can just type:
service ntp restart |
That command will restart the NTP daemon and set the time on your machine to the correct value. Also, starting services with the command is also a good way to manage your system.
service apache2 start |
The example shown above will start the Apache2 webserver. I like Suse Linux now better than Ubuntu as the runlevels and overall system works better than the dumbed down Ubuntu which is only good for learning Linux. Once you get some experience you really should move onto something else. I have found the portage and stage3 tarballs from Gentoo on my hard drive, I might consider installing that again if I can get a proper Internet connection to pull down all of those ebuilds. Building a Gentoo system is the most rewarding Linux experience. WIFI works well too managed with WICD, which can be used from a text console.