mod_rewrite - Clean URL in Drupal 6.17 problem

[cord1]

Hi
This is my first time here and wonder if anyone can help me.

Im dreaming of running Drupal 6.17 on localhost in a:
openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64)
Linux 2.6.34-12-desktop x86_64

installed MySQL 5.1.46-2.18-x86_64 /etc/
Installed PHP (all packages) 5.3.2-1.31-x86_64 /etc/php5
Installed Apache 2.2.15-3.7-x86_64 /etc/apache2
Drupal 6.17: /srv/www/htdocs/drupal617
.htaccess: /srv/www/htdocs/.htaccess

IN HTTPD.CONF
# forbid access to the entire filesystem by default
<Directory />
Options None
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</Directory>

# use .htaccess files for overriding,
AccessFileName .htaccess
# and never show them
<Files ~ "^\.ht">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

IN .HTACCESS file in /srv/www/htdocs/drupal617:
# Various rewrite rules.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on

# If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
# can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
# URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...)
# adapt and uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
# uncomment and adapt the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

# Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
# VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
# For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
# modify the following line:
RewriteBase /drupal617/
#
# If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
# uncomment the following line:
#RewriteBase /

# Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

The drupal > administrer > site configuration > Clean URL I get the message:
Your system configuration does not currently support this feature.

PLEASE HELP ME before I am going nuts.
I have been working for days with this Clean URL problem.