Soundmodem program on Suse 9.1

Does anyone have a link to some good docs on how to setup/configure 
soundmodem?  I got the program via yast but am already running into 
problems.   First thing  I found  is that the man pages are so minimal 
as to be useless.  Second thing is when I try to run soundmodemconfig I 
get an immediate error about "can't open display". I have no idea where 
to start on this one.  Should I get the latest sources from the web and 
compile them or is there a simple work around for this problem with the 
official package from Suse?

   Gale
    KC4PL