New to Debian -- simple questions

["Hall Stevenson" <hallstevenson@mindspring.com>]

Okay, I recently switched to Debian after using RedHat and
Mandrake-Linux for 2-3 years... Right off the bat, there are two
things I'd like to change.

1) Get rid of the login message that displays at the console after
typing in my name and password. I read through /etc/login.defs and
there was a reference to a file that I thought this message was coming
from, but the file didn't exist.

2) When I logout, I want the screen to clear so that the login prompt
is at the top (and it gets rid of any old text that now gets left
onscreen). I seem to recall on the Sparcs we used to use that there
was a .$SHELL_logout file.

Hmmmm, I just checked a RedHat machine here at work and see a
.bash_logout file ;-) It's (2) lines, and the second line is "clear".
I think I can take care of # 2 myself !

Thanks in advance... more questions likely to come along soon !

Regards
Hall Stevenson