With Upstart Linux is claiming to boots your system in 5 seconds! But what after that... How can we make GUI applications faster? The GUI - KDE/Gnome takes a lot of time to load.
The applications - openoffice, gimp, etc. too take time to load.
Surely we now have the latest server grade performance on our desktops, but the applications and the desktop is still too slow.
What can be done to make GUI faster or more responsive?
1. Make the window responsive first and then like Upstart load processes simultaneously?
2. Do we need new programming approach for GUIs?
3. Do we need to design new programming language for GUIs?
4. Do we require a complete new computer system arcitecture than x86?

I do not find the responsiveness of command line in GUIs no matter what hardware we buy?

The biggest problem right now is making sure new applications are aware (and make smart use of) multiple processors/cores. Even the cheapest systems on the market are dual core now, and high-end quad core machines are very common as well.

It is hard to add this retroactively though. For instance, Mozilla is working on a multi-core Firefox, but it is akin to basically re-writting the whole browser.

Also, moving to SSD over traditional HDD will get you much better random seek times, and as such much better performance for large programs that load many resources.

I think the biggest problem is that the GUI toolkits have just gone way overboard with the bloat and dependencies -it takes a long time to link all that stuff before a program can start.