Session

The Session Group provides you methods of controlling various items that occur with the startup of your GNOME Session. These include startup programs and startup hints.

Startup Hints

This capplet allows you to select any startup hints or messages displayed when you first log into GNOME. The capplet allows you to choose from various sources of messages.

The Enable login hints checkbox allows you to turn this feature on or off.

The Display normal hints checkbox will display a group of hints on how to use GNOME. This is a good choice for new users of GNOME.

The Display fortunes instead of hints checkbox allows you to make use of the fortune application which displays various "fortunes" and sayings. Please refer to the fortune documentation for how to set it up.

The Display message of the day instead of hints checkbox allows you to define a message of the day to be displayed instead of hints of fortunes. The Message of the day file to use text box allows you to define the text file that will be used as the message. This is a good choice for system administrators to use to inform many users of daily news.

Figure 12. Startup Hints Capplet

Startup Programs

Startup Programs capplet allows you control what applications are started at login. By default, GNOME starts some default programs, such as File Manager (necessary for functioning of the desktop), Panel and all applets in it, and some other supporting programs. But it can do more than that.

First, GNOME has the concept of session management. In simple terms, it means that you can save your "session" (that is, information about currently working applications, their status and position on screen) at logout and at your next login the same applications will reappear on your screen in the same positions, allowing you to continue your work. Note, however, that this only works for GNOME applications.

GNOME also provides another way of starting applications at login. You can explicitly specify one or more commands to run, and GNOME will execute them at login. This works for all kinds of applications, whether GNOME compatible or not.

Startup Programs capplet allows you to configure all of these options, as described below.

Figure 13. Startup Programs Capplet

Figure 14. Session Properties Manager