Startup hints have become a common occurance in a lot of applications, and Gnome is one of them. Startup hints open when a program is started, it displays tips for the application to make the user's experience more fruitful. In Gnome, the startup hints can be configured. This configuration takes place in the Startup Hint capplet of Gnome Control Center. Sometimes the user desires the hints window to not show up. To enable or disable, click the Enable login hints button. Display normal hints The startup hints will show the regular startup hints. Display fortunes insetad of hints fortunes is a small program that displays random quotes. The gnome startup hints application can display fortunes quotes instead of tips. Display message of the day instead of hints Often times administrators will create a "message of the day" ("MOTD") to notify users of important events. The gnome startup hints application can display these instead of tips. Most of the time, /etc/motd holds the motd. If the file is different from /etc/motd, you can edit that in the Message of the day file to use field.