Numlock

[Jim Cornette]

> The kernel is hard coded to disable numlock on startup.  Years
> back when this annoyed me as I wanted numlock to default to the
> BIOS defined setting as well, I was told on the linux-kernel
> mailing list that the kernel defaulted to disabling numlock so
> that Linus' laptop came up ready to type, rather than having 
> numlock enabled and having to turn it off in order to type.

Since laptops are becoming more common, I think that numlocks off is the 
best default setting. Also, for a left-handed person, as myself, the 
numbers pad is not frequently used. I like the setting off.

If you are doing a lot of working with numbers, it is not too dificult 
to hit the numlock key. For a laptop user, with combo keys, they would 
be typing things like 150 for jim and 35n4x for linux. It is more sane 
to keep the option set to off.

Jim (n6t 150)

> 
> I don't know if that is the true reason or not, but that's what I 
> was told years ago.  Needless to say, it annoyed me, so I patched 
> keyboard.c in 2.2.x to force numlock to come on unconditionally, 
> which is how I wanted it to be.  That worked great for forcing 
> all of the default VCs to have numlock turned on by default, and 
> IMHO is a more sane default setting, as the majority of users 
> have keyboards with separate cursor keys and numpad, so it makes 
> sense IMHO to boot up with both cursor keys AND numbers ready to 
> type, rather than 2 sets of cursor and navigation keys by 
> default.
> 
> IMHO, defaulting to the BIOS default state would be best, and 
> second to that defaulting to numlock on.  However, I have no 
> faith that the upstream kernel would ever change the current 
> default, or it'd have been done years ago by now.  I'm sure every 
> possible argument in either direction have all been completely 
> exhausted long ago, including my own above.  ;o)
> 
> Off the top of my head, I don't recall if XFree86 defaults to 
> enabling numlock, disabling numlock, or leaving numlock to the 
> default state it was in the tty X was started from.  I'd have to 
> doublecheck to be sure.
> 
> So, without modifying the kernel and/or X server, you'll have to 
> run setleds, or xset for X.  I dunno if the kernel guys are open 
> to the idea of patching the kernel to be sane for numlock by 
> default or not, but I'd consider doing it for X, especially if 
> someone else writes the patch and submits it in bugzilla.  ;o)
> 
> 
> 


-- 
We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely
intellectual fields.  But which are the best ones to start with?  Many 
people
think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be
best.  It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with
the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand
and speak English.
		-- Alan M. Turing