I can confirm that this last suggestion fixes the problem (which I have seen in both ubuntu and fedora core 5).
-- set-default-font in emacs21 from breezy is unreasonably slow compared to the version in hoary https://launchpad.net/bugs/23005 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
