smart --update just hangs (SUSE 10.1)

[David Shochat]

I have SUSE 10.1 and the "Zen Updater" that came with that system seems 
to be broken. So I saw mention of Smart in a SUSE newsgroup and decided 
to give it a try. I followed the steps on
http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=SMART_Package_Manager and everything 
was going well until I got to the place where it said to do:
smart --gui
A window comes up with title "Smart Package Manager 0.42" and a very small
window with title "Operation Progress" and a gray blank horizontal bar.
Then nothing. It appears to be hung. After a half hour, I finally gave 
up and killed it. How can I get it to work?
-- David