That was it !!! I modified this to point to an absolute path (/etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem), created that symlink and was finally able to activate v1.9. Thank you very much!
So anyway, for openSUSE users this worked: (any other NON-Debian distros you just have to find out where your CA certs are located)
sudo ln -s /etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt