There is something that Debian can do to significantly improve initial login times with GNOME. Please see the comments here regarding gconfd and gconf-merge-tree: http://www.gnome.org/~lcolitti/gnome-startup/analysis/ Debian bug #335823 is tracking this feature request. I'm giving you folks a heads-up since it seems like you're the most likely ones to be capable and interested in implementing it. Thanks, -Jonathan Brandmeyer