Além da resposta de Jeroen, executei este comando para descobrir o nome do padrão:
$ zypper se -t pattern devel
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
--+-------------+--------------------------+--------
i | Basis-Devel | C/C++ Compiler and Tools | pattern
Depois, foi uma questão de instalar os pacotes:
$ zypper install --type pattern Basis-Devel
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
adaptec-firmware aspell aspell-en aspell-ispell atmel-firmware autoconf automake bison brocade-firmware ctags cvs emacs emacs-info emacs-x11 flex gcc43-c++ gcc43-info gcc43-locale gcc-c++ gcc-info gcc-locale gdbm-devel giflib
glibc-info icom-firmware ipw-firmware kernel-default-devel kernel-source libaio-devel libasound2 libncurses6 libstdc++43-devel libstdc++-devel mpt-firmware ncurses-devel pkg-config rcs tack texinfo xaw3d
The following NEW patterns are going to be installed:
Basis-Devel Minimal
<snip>
Isso foi no SLES SP1.