KDE too slow with all file operations

[Daniela]

Hi all!

On 4.8-STABLE, KDE takes two minutes extra to startup, to open the "save as" 
or "open" dialogs, open local directories with Konqueror, ...

Seems like everything related to local files is much slower than before (on 
5.0-CURRENT/RELEASE). It's the same computer and the same version of KDE, so 
I think it is either a problem with the OS or with my files.
Everything on my system is self-compiled.

I suspected this could be the result of restoring the home directories and the 
distfiles from my previous installation. Now I don't think the home 
directories are the cause, as this problem affects newly created users as 
well.

Do you think it would help to recompile KDE, or are the distfiles for 4.8 and 
5.0 not the same? Or could the problem be XFree86, not KDE?

In the shell everything is going fast as hell.

I have no idea what this could be.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Daniela