I'll suggest you that check the permissions for the var folder and all subfolders. Perhaps the system can't create the necessary cache files and is making everthing really slow.
Debug activation can help to find the problem. Also review your ini settings and make sure that viewcache is activated too.
hth!
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Xavier Serna
eZ Publish Certified Developer
Departament de Software
Microblau S.L. - http://www.microblau.net
+34 937 466 205
I know from my own experience that running eZ Publish (or PHP apps in general) gives poor performance on PowerPC processors. I've tried running eZ Publish on both a G4 1GHz CPU and on a Dual 2GHz G5 and both was very slow. The new Intel Macs however seems to be running eZp much, much quicker...