After some tinkering, I finally found a work-around for this problem. Please keep in mind that I have just installed openSUSE as an operating system, and as such I did not have any personal files at risk here.
I downloaded and installed openSUSE 15.0 on my laptop. After getting all of the updates, I followed the previous instructions to install the additional 32bit related packages. Then I installed VIPM. Please note the following responses from the terminal window:
User Terminal: Command: sudo ./vipm Response: Unable to open X display
User Terminal: Command: ./vipm Response: Do not have permission to open file
Root Terminal: Command: sudo ./vipm Response: Unable to open X display
Root Terminal: Command: ./vipm Response: VIPM opens successfully!!
Once I verified that VIPM would open, I used a USB with the openSUSE Leap 15.1 installation files. When the screen pops up, I selected UPDATE instead of INSTALL or BOOT FROM HARD DRIVE (see example here). After selecting all of the default values, the system updated to Leap 15.1. After rebooting, I verified that Leap 15.1 was installed, and checked for any additional updates. Once that was done, I was able to successfully launch VIPM as root from a terminal window (see above responses).
I tested the above on a virtual machine first. As an alternative, I used the example found here on the VM as well, with success in launching VIPM, though it was not the method I used to update my laptop.
For some reason, starting from a fresh install of Leap 15.1 does not allow VIPM to run. When trying to launch, I get the Fatal Error 0x90FFFA4E error. This has been the only way that I have been able to successfully launch VIPM in openSUSE 15.1.
I hope that this works for you!
