Speed up Octave startup by a factor of 10-100x by not autoloading packages. For each of the Octave config files that exist, comment out the line:

# pkg ("load", "auto");

Verify GNU Octave speedup fix: in Octave type

pkg list

if all packages are starred, that means you’re autoloading, which greatly slows down Octave startup. The factor of 100 improvement in GNU Octave speedup was estimated with the command

time octave --eval 'exit'

Before fix 4.904 seconds, after fix 0.072 seconds to load Octave.