First, I would suggest you to run some of these apps with strace, like:

strace gedit

and see during what kind of operation the system is waiting.


On Tue, 23 Jul 2013 09:32:34 +0100
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Slow Application start-up times.
> 
> System:
> Sl: 6.4
> Kernel: 2.6.32-358.14.1.el6.i686
> RAM: 6GB
> 
> Here are readings of some of my application start-ups:
> 
> 1. gedit: 10sec [used to be <=2secs]
> 2. Thunderbird Email: 3 minutes [used to be <=5secs]
> 3. Chrome: 10sec [used to be <=3sec]
> 4. File Browser: 12secs [used to be <=2sec]
> 5. SL start-up itself takes more than 20 minutes.
> 6. It takes about 5 minutes after the initial login for the gnome 
> workspace to be ready-to-go
> 
> Indeed, every application takes (seems like) ages to start. Some of 
> these applications' start-up would even time-out, and would require a 
> second click to start.
> 
> I don't know where to look for the cause(s). Please give me some clues 
> to work with. The problem started following an upgrade of Kernel early 
> this year. I have since upgraded the kernel, two (or so) more times.
> 
> PLEASE! PLEASE! don't suggest that I reinstall SL.  I am occasionally 
> very tempted to do just that, but it would delay the project I am 
> currently working on.
> 
> 
> Thanks.