to this black panel:
On my other computer I realized the panel was black and stylish. By the time I installed opensuse 11.1 on my laptop, I forgot how I had done this. So I went through all the KDE Configure Desktop Settings and didn't find it.
Then I came across the solution:
Right click on the Desktop, "Desktop Settings" and for "Desktop Theme" choose either 'Oxygen' or 'Elegance'.