> Hi David, I'm running PIII/800MHz laptop. Perhaps I did exagerate a 
> bit, but not much. It takes at least 3 minutes for the sample page to 
> come up and it will take just as long to reload/refresh the same page. 
> Plus, starting up the "ruby dispatch.servlet -a" takes at least 1 
> minutes.
>
> I will try what you suggested by updating it to the latest beta.

Something is obviously broken in your setup. Your machine should be 
fully capable of reloading that screen in MAX 5 seconds, I'd say. And 
I'd think it should be more like 2-3. I wonder if something is trying 
to resolve something and waiting for a timeout. Could sound like it.

If that's the case, maybe it won't even help to upgrade to the beta 
rails. You should probably try do to a simple test with webrick and see 
if you can get that to perform if possible.
--
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.basecamphq.com/   -- Web-based Project Management
http://www.rubyonrails.org/  -- Web-application framework for Ruby
http://macromates.com/       -- TextMate: Code and markup editor (OS X)
http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain