I ran yast2 in console, and here is what I logged: (I did an upgrade from Suse 11 -> 11.1, FYI)
Failed to get value for `/schemas/apps/metacity/general/num_workspaces’: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See GConf configuration system for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)