Now that we are closed to code freeze, I've looked at the startup speed again, and here is what I got: $ truss -t stat -o out xemacs -q -nw -f kill-emacs I tried this with XEmacs 20.3 (the default configuration), and with my 21.0 installation containing a moderate number of packages (probably less than there were in 20.3). Basically, 20.3 performs 96 stats, while 21.0 performs 651 stats. The ones in 21.0 are mostly spent to stat the `.el' and `.elc' files. Michael, what was your opinion about the optimization we discussed, which would forbid directories ending with `.el' or `.elc'? I think it would be worth implementing it, especially for non-Unix systems, where a stat is extremely costly. -- Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic(a)srce.hr&gt; | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia --------------------------------+-------------------------------- Idle RAM is the Devil's playground.