I share everything not just successes but also failures. The Samsung TV I am using as an output for the monitor seems to have issues with OpenSuse. Here is what happens.
The behavior is that when I step away the TV goes into sleep mode and disconnects from the laptop with the HDMI cable. Unplugging the HDMI cable and replugging it in doesn’t seem to help. Strangely when I looked in the display properties it listed the TV under a drop-down of outputs but when I selected it, it said it wasn’t active. I had to click on Enable to enable it. Then it worked.
Now with my main setup of the same HDMI to the projector, the projector doesn’t power down and doesn’t lose the connection even if I step away for a few minutes. Eventually, if the display isn’t sending a new signal after 20 minutes it will blink and if I move the cursor it will come back online and be regular. I rarely have to do this. I am either using the computer or I’m not, and if I am not, then I turn off the projector and the computer.
However, the TV wants to switch back to its internal smart TV status without external input. It makes sense. They want to sell things and collect data. So I think the solution is to see if the TV has a solution to not switch back to the smart TV default if it doesn’t sense a signal from the external HDMI connection. Or use a utility like a mouse jiggler either hardware or software to move the mouse so that the screen input doesn’t try to switch.
Another option would be to play something like a song/video that would send a signal to the monitor. That should also fix the issue. Fortunately, my friend has the TV, not me, so it is not an issue that I need to worry about.