linux seems slow

[John W]

I am running Linux Mandrake 7.1 on an AMD K62 500Mhz,Asus P5A mobo,64
MB,Western Digital 15.3G,Diamond stealth 2mb vid card on an S3 x server @
1024x768. I am dualbooting  win98 on the first 7 gigs and linux has the rest
of the HD. I seem to have a 5-7 second delay when launching any graphical
application such as netscape,gimp etc. Opening a terminal window is
instantaneous. maybe this is normal tyhough I seem to rember hearing that
Linux opened apps faster than windows. I am curious if their is something
simple that may be causing this or if it is normal under a GUI or perhaps
just my dog of a vid card.
Thanks,
John