FC3 Gnome 2.8 loads slowly with non-default config

[Jonathan Berry]

Hi all,
I'm running FC3 x86_64 with Gnome 2.8 and I have noticed that the
startup time seems to be very slow if I modify the default layout.  I
prefer the one panel at the bottom, but Gnome doesn't seem to like
that as much.  I have tried adding another user and modifying the
layout of everything and I see the same results.  With the default
two-panel layout, startup time is relatively fast, probably 5-10
seconds for everything to come up.  After moving things to the lower
panel and removing the upper one, start-up time goes up to about 15-20
seconds.  These numbers are just estimates, but what I want to convey
is there is a noticable difference in the speed of the two.  In the
one-panel config, I have noticed that the up2date icon takes much
longer to load.  I had added some applets (cpufreq, weather, and
gdesklets) but I still see a large slow down without these.
Has anyone else seen something like this?  Anyone know the reason?  My
computer seems to access the hard drive much more in the custom
config, and being a laptop, the hard disk is relatively slow, so that
may have something to do with it.
Thanks,
Jonathan