When you log in into Ubuntu info about the system is shown (yes I know I have to run an update, that’s why I’m logging in ….)
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS Welcome to Ubuntu! * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/ System information as of Tue Dec 4 13:02:47 CET 2012 Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/ 10 packages can be updated. 5 updates are security updates. You have new mail. It's just removing some things from the motd (message of the day) system, found in /etc/update-motd.d