Hi everyone.

My Linux distro is ArchLinux and I've been user of KDE since the previous release, the 4.2.

In KDE 4.2 the boot was normal, it showed me the KDE Splash Screen then the desktop and I was able to use the computer quickly but with KDE 4.3, the boot until I'm able to use the desktop environment is much slower.

It shows me the KDE Splash screen then the KDE bar and takes a few moments to show me the desktop and start the startup applications and to be able to use the computter.

I'm using the official KDE packages from the official Arch's repositories, with the desktop showing folders and with 3 applications in startup: Thunderbird, Dropbox and Conky.

I already tried to create a new user on my system and start KDE there but the effect is the same.

on Arch64 and having the same issue. Tested a minimal install in Virtualbox which produced the same problem.

There are reports of the same problem in Arch and Ubuntu forums:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79139

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1158956

Ditto. I'm on FreeBSD, and 4.3.x is much slower starting up. The startup music doesn't happen until fifteen or thirty minutes after the desktop appears to be up.

Same problem here.

I took a closer look at logs during kde startup and found out that it hangs when loading plasma (/usr/lib/libkdeinit4_plasma-desktop.so). I have moved libkdeinit4_plasma-desktop.so and then KDE started fast. I have put library back and poked around with widgets. It turned out that panel is causing this slowdown. I have moved all widgets (tray, task manager, clock, ...) from panel directly to desktop and removed panel - KDE started fast again. Even after adding empty panel to desktop, KDE starts up slowly. However, there are some situations when KDE starts up fast with panel (usually when it is not maximized), but it appears to be more or less random. It always starts up fast without panel.

Can anyone confirm that? It is best to try it on new account.

UPDATE:

I could not reproduce it again in 100% cases today. But I' have finally (I hope) found what is causing this. This time reproducible in 100% so far. Right click on desktop > desktop settings > wallpaper type -> change it to anything other than image (color for example). Each time I log in to KDE with image wallpaper, it takes 10 seconds longer during splash when KDE logo is displayed.

So it seems to be a problem with /usr/lib/kde4/plasma_wallpaper_image.so or something that interacts with it.

I also find that setting the splash screen to 'none' speeds up the loading of the desktop, however icons in the system tray don't appear for several seconds. I can open programs before these icons appear.

Update: Choosing colour instead of a wallpaper and using default splash results in kde loading quickly again. Icons in system tray load quick too.

I will build plasma_wallpaper_image.so from SVN and see if bug is still present. It will take a while to build core of kde.
UPDATE:
Bug still present in SVN (08-09-2009). Do You have 64 or 32 bit Arch? Also it would be nice to check if other distributions/systems have the same issue.

Just tried KDE with no image wallpaper, color wallpaper, and no splash screen and it still takes too long to boot. Almost 1 minute from when I login until I have the desktop ready.

How a bug like this made up to the final version of KDE 4.3? :\

I was able to reproduce this bug (~10 second delay in KDE startup) in 32 bit OpenSUSE (factory build). Reported to KDE team: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206788

If You have account on bugs.kde.org and You are affected by this issue then vote, please.

HenryAnderson wrote:Just tried KDE with no image wallpaper, color wallpaper, and no splash screen and it still takes too long to boot. Almost 1 minute from when I login until I have the desktop ready.

KDE 4.3 starts much faster (not counting wallpaper bug) than KDE 3.5.x on my machine so it must be yet another issue.

Just voted it, but it still has too few votes.

Brandybuck wrote:Ditto. I'm on FreeBSD, and 4.3.x is much slower starting up. The startup music doesn't happen until fifteen or thirty minutes after the desktop appears to be up.

I am on FreeBSD too and I have slow start too and problem with sound - it is too load. When I lower after awile start to be load again.
It was my third try of KDE 4 (3.1) and I am back on my KDE 3.5.10 which works excellent .

A little more...
In /var/messahes I got:

Sep 8 17:04:21 dbus-daemon: Would reject message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.9" (uid=1001 pid=
1470 comm=") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable" member="Introspect" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 des
tination="org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit" (uid=0 pid=1036 comm="))
Sep 8 17:04:21 athena console-kit-daemon[1036]: WARNING: kvm_getenvv failed: cannot open /proc/1470/mem
Sep 8 17:04:33 pulseaudio[1531]: oss-util.c: '/dev/dsp1' doesn't support full duplex

I use /dev/dsp0

KDE encounters issues with Pulseaudio. Removing it, and using the Xine backend is recommended.
You may wish to check with your distribution about how to ensure that D-Bus permits KDE to access ConsoleKit.

Yay, bug 206788 RESOLVED FIXED.

Thanks everyone for reporting and voting. And special thanks to Beat Wolf for fix.

I hope that other bugs that You experience will be fixed too.

How can I debug this situation? I would like to report it and help to solve it. :\

EDIT: How do I apply this fix?
http://websvn.kde.org/?view=rev&revision=1021550