On my Ubuntu 32-bits it works just fine. No visible slowdown.
Is there any sign of what data provider is used? Is it Sun Studio?

What does `top` command show? `ps -ef | grep freeway` ?

Yes, Sun Studio data provider is used. I have 3 SunStudio builds on my machine: in /opt/sun (SunStudio12), /opt/sun_new
(SunStudioExpress) and /opt/sun_new_oldssx (other SunStudioExpress). By default NetBeans see SunStudio12 from /opt/sun
and I don't think IDE knows about other SunStudio builds.

1 time:
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
14100 vs157455  23   0 44796  37m 2088 R   45  1.9   0:01.36 er_print
14556 vs157455  15   0  331m 169m  24m S   30  8.4  27:30.79 thunderbird-bin
14424 vs157455  16   0  142m  24m  12m S   10  1.2   0:13.40 gnome-terminal
25737 root      16   0  220m  99m  15m S    3  5.0 146:26.11 X
13617 vs157455  25   0  933m 425m  21m S    2 21.2   1:32.81 java
14054 vs157455  16   0  5660 1288  872 R    0  0.1   0:00.10 top

2 time:
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
14155 vs157455  25   0 46116  39m 2088 R   86  1.9   0:02.63 er_print
13826 vs157455  16   0 98856  19m 8864 R   16  1.0   0:23.59 Freeway
13617 vs157455  25   0  933m 426m  21m S    2 21.2   1:34.09 java
25737 root      16   0  220m  99m  15m R    1  5.0 146:27.05 X
14152 vs157455  16   0  5660 1284  872 R    0  0.1   0:00.02 top
14531 vs157455  18   0  152m  16m  12m S    0  0.8   0:05.92 licq
14556 vs157455  15   0  331m 169m  24m S    0  8.4  27:30.82 thunderbird-bin
25860 vs157455  15   0  172m  16m 9716 S    0  0.8   2:40.60 gnome-panel

Please run in terminal
# collect -s 30 -H on freeway
and see what freeway performance is like. (This is what NB actually runs behind the scenes.)

FWIW, I just tried Freeway on OpenSolaris and i runs extremely slow on my machine too. It takes almost 30 seconds just to come up.....

I tried it out. It takes 15-20 sec to come up on Ubuntu 8.10 32-bits. When it works almost fine, but then simulation is
running any UI action like menu invocation takes about a minute and freeze my entire system.
I also tried with just "-H on", same thing. Just "-s 30" works fine.
Can you please compare with valgrind, and if it is better, then just file a CR against Sun Studio RTC. And waive this bug.

I tried `valgrind --leak-check=full ./Freeway`
Freeway window appears in about 7 seconds. Freeway's File menu takes about 3 seconds to appear after click (first time
only). After that Freeway is pretty usable.

So, please, file a CR against analyzer or dbx. And we will think what to do with thi bug.

I filed CR 6822590.

Ubuntu 8.10
Code:
#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    GtkWidget *window;
    GtkWidget *button;
    gtk_init (&argc, &argv);
    window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
    gtk_container_set_border_width (GTK_CONTAINER (window), 10);
    button = gtk_button_new_with_label ("Hello World");
    gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), button);
    gtk_widget_show (button);
    g_print("1\n");
    gtk_widget_show (window);
    return 0;
}

Time:
sova@sova:~$ time -p collect -H on /home/sova/NetBeansProjects/Application_2/dist/Debug/GNU-Linux-x86/application_2 
real 14.46
user 14.31
sys 0.15

sova@sova:~$ time -p valgrind --leak-check=full
/home/sova/NetBeansProjects/Application_2/dist/Debug/GNU-Linux-x86/application_2 
real 5.42
user 5.37
sys 0.05

sova@sova:~$ time -p /home/sova/NetBeansProjects/Application_2/dist/Debug/GNU-Linux-x86/application_2 1
real 0.06
user 0.01
sys 0.02

Makefile:

CCC=g++
CXXFLAGS=-g

default:
        ${CCC} ${CXXFLAGS} `pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --cflags` -o sample sample.cc `pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --libs`

clean:
        rm -f sample

As it is a toolchain issue, we won't fix it. We will mention the issue in documentation and work with analyzer team to
solve this problem.