These seems to be bug #5176 cropping up again. I remember following it up in January 2006. It's also: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=323064 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=338438 -- gnome-panel eats 50% cpu for half an hour and flickers https://launchpad.net/bugs/52405