Yes, we even use an "enhanced" trace and debug package of our own but it doesn't seem like a perl error, i.e. all is executing normally when traced as a perl but it's the initial interpretaion/syntax check that's slowing the things on the "new" OSes. I will try to do some io testing but I will be suprised if that's the problem as it happens on different hardware platforms and OSes (FC5, CentOS5 tested for now).

Thank you!

P.S. I wonder ... could it be glibc issue, as all of the FC5+ are using glibc-2.4 while the older use glibc-2.3