I have a machine that takes _forever_ to load a file for editing into
vi (ca. 7 seconds) or to login to via telnet (over 30 seconds). I asked
about this previously, thinking it was some kind of hardware problem.
Recently, I made a big discovery: if I reboot the machine, it's _fast_.
However, hour by hour it gets more and more "sluggish," and by the end
of the day, it's as slow as ever. If I reboot, it perks right up. I've
confirmed this over 6 times now, and every time it progressively slows
down and ends up at approximately the same level of "sluggishness." Some
things, like httpd (Apache) or compiling don't seem to be affected at
all, or at least not noticeably.

I've tried to not start up daemons one by one, but I've not hit
on anything that seems to make a difference. Is there some way to
systematically debug a problem like this? TIA

henry nelson