Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

I noticed a few days ago that the Gnome Panel takes a long time to show up when I log in. It’s consistently about 25 seconds from the time the background and desktop icons show up until the top and bottom panels show up.
I’ve found a few references to this, but I’m not yet sure what the fix is.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1506942
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1497083&highlight=panel+ages
Update: Twirl, an Adobe Air application now takes about 30 seconds to start.

I found some more clues related to IPv6. I vaguely remember a problem with this months (years?) ago on Fedora. The first relates to Firefox and the second is for the OS as a whole. I tried method 3 by adding a new entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst. No joy.

Update 25 July: This morning a raft of updates (163), including kernel 2.6.32-24, were available. After installing them, the panel loads normally again.

The fingerprint scanner is working for everything in Ubuntu 10.04 except gnome-screensaver. I used these directions for enabling the fingerprint reader with screensaver.

I had to use udevadm trigger instead of udevtrigger and had to modify the steps at the end in the “not for Ubuntu Intrepid” section: The .thinkfinger.bir file is in my home directory. The ownership is me:root and permissions are 660.

Now it works, too (and the prompt changed to “Password or swipe finger”).

Thinkfinger (fingerprint reader) is working on my Thinkpad T60 except I have to press the enter key after swiping. This is a recurring bug.
Fortunately, the bug has a fix listed from Martin Schwenke’s PPA (personal package archive).
To use install the fix:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:martin-meltin/ppa
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install \
libpam-thinkfinger=0.3+r118-0ubuntu4ppamartinmeltin5 \
libthinkfinger0=0.3+r118-0ubuntu4ppamartinmeltin5 \
thinkfinger-tools=0.3+r118-0ubuntu4ppamartinmeltin5

I tried enabling the fingerprint reader on Ubuntu 10.04. The first step was to check out the directions on the Ubuntu Wiki. The packages were already available through Synaptic (search for thinkfinger and install libpam-thinkfinger, thinkfinger-tools, libthinkfinger-doc and libthinkfinger0). The command line fingerprint test worked fine.
Running sudo /usr/lib/pam-thinkfinger/pam-thinkfinger-enable didn’t allow use of fingerprint reader on login screen.
The man page for pam_thinkfinger(8) had a check for the fingerprint reader device. It wasn’t there. After a sudo modprobe uinput, it was at /dev/uinput. Then the log in screen said password or swipe finger (you still have to select your username first). There’s an outstanding bug that causes you to have to hit enter after swiping your finger.
More stuff on ThinkWiki to check later.