my system running to slow..

[adarsh.ist]

i am using suse10. it takes nearly 3.5 minutes from the moment i press power button to see the desktop. shutting down is somewhat fast. can anybody tell me some way to make my system lightening fast. it runs 0n p4, 512ddr1 ram and 40gb hdd.

[gogalthorp]

When the startup splash screen starts press esc to see the boot processes. See what is eating time.

If you do not shutdown correctly ie just power off, The file system will replay the last transactions. This can take some time. Also if you sync the system clock with a off site time source can take some time if the network connection has not been made.

What speed is the processor?

[cheapscotchron]

opensuse likes more memory. a p4 with 512 is lame. I am surprised it runs.
if you cant get a faster cpu and/or more memory, try a different dist. e.g. xubuntu

[whych]

More ram is the answer. I use 11.0 on an old celeron acernote and with 1g ram it runs fine.