Well, I got a Compaq 2.8 GHz with lots of RAM and it still is way to slow.
Any numbers?
I just started yast->hardware information to check whether I got a 2.8 or a 2.4 and guess what :-) the system hanged first while "detecting tape" and then rebooted. No idea why. I imagine it has something to do with the USB stick problem I was mentioning earlier, but it is ...eery. A Linux box rebooting just like that. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Anyway, I cannot check for KDE start times since (i) I removed KDE from my hard drive and (ii).... But wait, oh, I just go on another computer, 2.something as well. ...around 50 seconds, inclusive 10 seconds for the authentification (why the hack pam_unix2 from SuSE needs 10 seconds and pam_unix from Debian only 1?).
Remember that on many machines users have to log in and log out all the day, and KDE is slow not during the reboot process, but after you log in.
Yes, the KDE session startup could be faster. It takes about 15 seconds on my machine (dual 2.4 GHz Xeon). I guess the time must be much longer when /home is mounted via NFS on a busy network.
The network is not busy at all, it's weekend now, noone is here, most of the computers are shut down, almost no network traffic. But yes, it is an NFS issue. However: Window Maker comes up almost instantly. j. -- Fire-fox your konqueror!