Advice on installing suse8.1 pro

[atwalhs]

I installed it with the defualt options, & found I could not install the nvidia drivers. I selected for the gfx card to prepare it self for 3d. I connected to yast online update but got an error when d/l them. So I got the drivers off the nvidia.com and went to safe settings & logged in as user, then su. Then tried to install them but got errors with kernel rpm, src rpm, & tar balls. So I tried the yast online again, this time they did install, but for some reason the kernel rpm had 0 bytes, where suse tells you whats installed. Upon rebooting and starting X the computer froze when it gets to the graphical login the computer freezes, and does this everytime.

So I will have to reinstall it, but this time I want a simple install, that will allow me to install the nvidia drivers easily. Like in mdk where you can login & then startx after, anyway suse lets you do this?

Any advice on installing suse 8.1 pro would be welcome.