On 2004-08-20, Vladimir <vladimir.martinov_NOSPAM_@lemeridien-hotels.com> wrote:
> To repeat the issue:
> PIII 600, 384MB RAM, I810 (I82810) board, 30MB HDD
> The system pauses for 5 second (aprox) after launching and before processing
> an application (like less, man etc.)
>
> Cordially and with regards,
> Vladimir

Vladimir,

I had a similar problem once when there was some problem with name
resolution on my machine. For some reason, some programs (are you
using tcsh by any chance?) want to lookup `hostname` when they start
and if there is something wrong in your /etc/hosts or /etc/resolv.conf
or your /etc/nsswitch.conf, things will hang while the name lookup is
timing out.

Make sure your hostname is in /etc/hosts, and make sure the hosts:
line in /etc/nsswitch.conf looks like

hosts: files dns

and see if the problem persists.

Jim