Cure for sluggishness on Hardy
When starting a new program on, for example KUbuntu 8.04, there is a delay of several seconds. This can be caused by SCIM — which is a multi-language keyboard input protocol — not loading. Check your system logs. If this is the problem, try as root:
apt-get remove scim-qtimm scim-bridge-client-qt4 scim-bridge-client-qt scim-bridge-client-gtk scim-bridge-agent skim scim-modules-socket libskim0 libscim8c2a
References: Ubuntu bug #2033334, bug #206302