Thanks to exceptional work by Serghei Amelian KDE3 has recently gained an Udisks2 backend (earlier than KDE4 did btw!). The Udisks2 backend is capable of operation autonomously or in conjunction with udisks-glue. Unfortunately the autonomous operation is still not perfect and requires altered polkit rules.

To switch the Udisks2 backend on and off, go to Peripherals->Storage Media->Advanced in KDE control center.

As you possibly know, the last openSUSE release does not include HAL layer which was employed by multiple software to access hardware components. This heavily impacted the KDE 3 users who became unable to suspend and hibernate their systems without installing HAL from a separate repository. Now, thanks to a patch developed by Serghei Amelian, KDE3 got the support for the modern hardware interface, Upower. The update is already published for openSUSE 12.1.

Among other improvements to KDE3 is the possibility to resize tray icons by editing (or creating) the config file ~/.kde/share/config/systemtray_panelappletrc with the following section:

[System Tray]
systrayIconWidth=XX

where XX is the preferred icon size. While in the previous KDE3 releases the icons would got cut, they are scaled now. I changed the default size of the tray icons to 18 px so that they could fit in two rows at medium panel size (see the screenshot).

I also removed the annoying arrows from the applet handles so they not to damage the common style. The applet menu still can be called by right-clicking on the handle.
One additional improvement is that kpdf now got the ability to rotate the document.

This is an openSUSE 12.1 KDE3 LiveDVD from the KDE:KDE3 repository maintainer.

It continues the KDE3 series published by me for previous openSUSE releases, 11.3 and 11.4

Unlike other similar LiveCDs, this build includes extended set of software, not only from official openSUSE 12.1 repository, but also from KDE:KDE3 repo.

The image includes openSUSE-specific presets and an auto-updater applet which allows to keep your installation up-to-date.

Since the final KDE3 release KDE3 in openSUSE repository undergone several changes.

The most visible fixes include the appearance of the “classic” style of the taskbar (the button of the active window now appears pushed, something that was broke in the last KDE3 release); the selection of the icons on the desktop now resembles the style used in the file manager with rounded corners. The LiveDVD ships with openSUSE artwork and exclusive openSUSE-style window decorations.

Direct download link:

http://susestudio.com/download/2dd3fc0c6ad40f78c4a53b0e4fdd7a8b/OpenSUSE_12.1_KDE3.x86_64-1.0.7.iso

Appliance link in Suse Studio:

http://susestudio.com/a/vv1af0/opensuse-121-kde3

The appliance is capable of being cloned so to create derivatives.

I used Suse Studio to create this openSUSE 12.1 Gnome 2 Live CD.

The direct ISO download link:
http://susestudio.com/download/54fa2861498cb365921d7bbaf1ca7009/OpenSUSE_12.1_Gnome2.x86_64-1.0.9.iso

Appliance:
http://susestudio.com/a/vv1af0/opensuse-121-gnome2