[kde-linux] Sluggish alt-tab

[Luciano ES]

Hi. I'm using KDE 3.5.3 with Slackware -current (probably 11.0 real soon now). 

For more or less one year, I've had this very annoying problem with KDE: after 
one or two days running a session, alt-tabbing among windows becomes very 
slow. I press Alt+Tab and have to wait from 2 to 4 full seconds for the 
window switch to take place.

This is really awful. It actually forces me to restart X to make the problem 
go away, at least until it comes back a few hours later. In practice, I feel 
like I am using Windows 9x, which had to be rebooted from time to time.

Soon after KDE 3.5.1 was released, I upgraded to it and soon noticed that the 
problem had disappeared completely. I would leave KDE running for as long as 
two or three weeks in a row without restarting X and the problem never came 
back. I always ended up rebooting the entire system for some totally 
unrelated reason and never saw the problem again. Whew, what a relief! I just 
assumed it was some bug that had been fixed and used 3.5.1 for several 
months, happy as a duck on a rainy day.

But my joy is over. I upgraded to KDE 3.5.3 last week and the bothersome 
problem has definitely come back again. Sure enough, I can't have KDE running 
for longer than 8 or 10 hours without getting bugged by this mysterious 
behavior. Sometime even less: 5 or 6 hours.

It should be interesting to note that it only affects window switching by 
means of "alt-tabbing" with the keyboard. If I switch windows by clicking 
window titles in the task bar, windows are switched instantaneously. That 
would be OK if I didn't hate having to use the mouse for that.

Does anyone have any idea about what could be causing it (and a solution too, 
maybe)?

Thank you.

-- 
Luciano ES
Santos, SP - Brasil
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