Awn, And A Couple Of Other Questions!

Firstly, I'm a convert from Ubuntu, after Hardy's release not working after install. I got a black screen of death, because Xorg wasn't installing properly. I've decided to try OpenSUSE, after a 5 month jaunt on Vista x64. I must say, right out of the box it worked quite well, save for the bumps with fglrx, but thats not SUSE's fault .
Well, fglrx and XGL that was fun. Where to start, appearently enabling XGL disabled/negated fglrx, I mean when XGL was on fglrx was gone. So I used the OpenSUSE wiki and finally used AIGLX for Compiz, and all is smooth! Nextly, when AWN is installed the Launchers aren't working right, AWN manager shows 5-6 icons of gears in the Launchers area, and none of them do anything, but if I remove one AWN will not run! This happens if I build from source, or get it from the repos/one click install. So I've tried other docks, Kiba was buggy after jumping through hopes to get it, it crashed and wouldn't relaunch. So basically, I am wondering if anyone can give some advice or point me in the right direction about AWN.

Oh, and I'm an Opera fan, but it appears the latest snapshot/Beta 2 crash anytime a flash object loads.... not really cool if you ask me!