Vim startup time much longer than expected

[Tillman Hodgson]

Howdy folks,

I NFS export my home directory from a 4-STABLE box. In this home
directory are my .vimrc file and a couple of vim plugins that I use.

When I launch vim (which I use with mutt) from a workstation running
RedHat 7.3 it loads and is ready for input virtually instantly. When I
launch vim from the server itself (local disk!) it takes several seconds
before it's ready for input.

As the config files are identical, I can't think of what else might be
causing the difference. Perhaps compile options for the vim port (I use
-WITHOUT_X on the FreeBSD server end)?

It does seem, though I haven't attempted to profile or trace the process,
that it's hanging much longer while displaying this in the status line:

 "Pattern not found: ^> -- .*"

That's the result of my quoted .sig dumper for email replies (and thus
isn't called when I'm composing a new mail):

 """ EMAIL
 " Make VIM use shorter lines for emails
 au BufNewFile,BufRead .letter,mutt*,nn.*,snd.* set tw=72
 " Delete quoted .sig's
 au BufRead /tmp/mutt-* normal :g/^> -- .*/,/^$/-1d

I don't understand why that would be faster on the workstation (which is
half the box CPU-wise and NFS'ed) than the server. Perhaps the FreeBSD
port of vim (6.2 rather than 6.1 on the client) incorporates a
deliberate delay for warnings like that?

In any case, if anyone is able to pass me some insight I'd much
appreciate it.

-T


-- 
"Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology
because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against
complexity." -- David Gelernter, Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of
                Technology