  A non--equilibrium occupation distribution relaxes towards the Fermi--Dirac
distribution due to electron--electron scattering even in finite Fermi systems.
The dynamic evolution of this thermalization process assumed to result from an
optical excitation is investigated numerically by solving a Boltzmann equation
for the carrier populations using a one--dimensional disordered system. We
focus on the short time--scale behavior. The logarithmically long time--scale
associated with the glassy behavior of interacting electrons in disordered
systems is not treated in our investigation.
  For weak disorder and short range interaction we recover the expected result
that disorder enhances the relaxation rate as compared to the case without
disorder. For sufficiently strong disorder, however, we find an opposite trend
due to the reduction of scattering probabilities originating from the strong
localization of the single--particle states. Long--range interaction in this
regime produces a similar effect. The relaxation rate is found to scale with
the interaction strength, however, the interplay between the implicit and the
explicit character of the interaction produces an anomalous exponent.
