beta 1 laptop install and fix

[Craig Ringer]

>>> Is it me, or is this Beta2 snappier than RH9 ?
>>
>> Not just you.
>> I've noticed it too.
>>
> me too - which makes me happy coz rh9 is a bit of a slugger on my machine.

Any information on what may be behind the performance improvements?

Smaller binaries (hence less disk I/O)?
More efficient app init (esp GNOME/KDE)?
Memory footprint reduction?
Compiler changes?
(insert other blind guesses here)

I'm interested, as much as anything to know whether it actually affects 
me (long-time XFCE4 user, don't like GNOME/KDE).

Craig Ringer