[KLUG Members] slow initial program access

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> I just installed another SUSE 9.1 system.  It is on the fastest
> workstation here.  It is working really strange though.  When I first
> start applications they take like forever to startup.  Just to open a
> terminal window in KDE takes about 30 seconds.  Once the program is

How is NSS responding?  (How long does '$ id bob' take to return a result?). 
Are you using local password, nis, ldap, etc...?

What about hostname resolution?  Openning and X window involves several calls to
gethostbyname().

> loaded the computer runs really fast and just fine unless I am
> getting to a feature that the computer seems to need to go to the
> hard drive again.  I think that there is some problem with the HD
> access on the system.  I am not sure what the chipset on the computer
> is (I did not build or buy this myself).  I will have to crack the

What does dmesg say about how the IDE bus has been configured.  Often times you
need to manually set the DMA mode and bus speed (idebus=66 as a boot param,
etc...).

> case to find out the motherboard that is inside it.  Any ideas as to
> how to get this working better?  I do have an older system I may be
> able to yank some SCSI drives out of possibly.

Never hurts.