I am now running off of SUSE linux 10.1, but when i try to open .package files for anything it says:
gedit was not able to detect the character encoding... can anyone tell me whats wrong?
Though I've never tried SUSE it sounds like you have a file association problem. You need to find some way to open the .package files "Open With" and then choose the correct application (a package manager, I assume) to open it in. gEdit is a text editor and you have most likely accidentally set .package files to open with it as default. I'm not entirely sure how you would make something new the default, but I think it's enough by simply open it in another program (the correct one, of course) and it will just use that last used program for the file-type.
If you need more help from me you will have to give more information.