Bug 87946

Summary: No numlock option
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Need Real Name <lsof>
Component: redhat-config-keyboardAssignee: Brent Fox <bfox>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 8.0CC: mcermak, stuart
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: FutureFeature
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Enhancement
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2003-10-17 20:15:25 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Need Real Name 2003-04-03 22:17:19 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030313

Description of problem:
I can't configure Red Hat linux to start with numlock enabled.

How reproducible:
Always

Additional info:
With numlock disabled by default, I get two sets of arrow keys - the arrow arrow
keys, and the number/arrow arrow keys.

Comment 1 Brent Fox 2003-04-03 22:28:17 UTC
Most bioses allow you to select whether the machine should boot with numlock on
or off.  I don't want to clutter the UI with items like this.

Comment 2 Need Real Name 2003-04-06 18:46:33 UTC
My BIOS is set to start my machine with the numlock on.

Numlock gets turned off before it reaches the init.d scripts.

It would be nice if the OS honoured the BIOS setting.
Shall I refile?

Comment 3 Brent Fox 2003-05-27 21:17:08 UTC
I believe that the kernel is resetting the Numlock setting.  I would recommend
that you file a new bug against the kernel.  My guess is that the kernel people
will resist changing the current behavior.  Closing as 'notabug' for
redhat-config-keyboard.  Thanks for your report.

Comment 4 Need Real Name 2003-07-01 19:53:56 UTC
I filed a kernel bug (bug 91765). It is a kernel issue, but it raises a bigger
point:

"..In addition it gets more complicated once people start hotplugging USB
keyboards.."
 -- Alan Cox

I can't think of a better place that in redhat-config-keyboard, to allow users
to configure how their keyboard is setup.

If a user attaches a USB keyboard to the system, shouldn't the keyboard start
with user-predefined settings?


Comment 5 Stuart Blake Tener 2003-07-24 15:41:05 UTC
This actually is an issue for me as well. I own a Gateway G6-350, and as well as
some several other machines (some older boxes like the G6). One problem seems to
be that some of these older BIOS versions do not offer the ability to turn off a
NUMLOCK switch in the BIOS.

Thus, when I boot up with my IBM Model "M" keyboard (Part number 1395217, made I
think on 04-04-90), then it seems have the keyboard in "NUMLOCK On" mode. Thus I
try to type "linux rescue vga=792", and instead of getting linux, I get "34N5X"!

The simple solution (in my view) for this would be to have the install CD go and
turn numlock off in its initialization procedure, so that when the "Linux:" boot
prompt from the CD-ROM appears, you can type "linux" and not "34n5x". Then there
could be a kernel parameter (such as "NUMLOCK={ON|OFF}" to use once installed on
the hard drive.

I do not know if this is an issue strictly with RedHat (as that is the only real
Linux distribution I use), but it maybe true of SuSE or others too, not sure.


Thanks,

Stuart
Beverly Hills, CA


Comment 6 Brent Fox 2003-10-17 20:15:25 UTC
Sorry, redhat-config-keyboard is for selecting the geographic keymap.  That's
all.  I'm not going to expand the scope of the tool beyond that.  

Keep in mind that the redhat-config-keyboard interface is also used by anaconda
during the initial system install.  It just doesn't make sense to ask users
anything other than what type of keyboard they have (U.S., French, German, etc.)

Comment 7 Martin Cermak 2010-04-30 07:43:11 UTC
You can easilly work this around by adding something like

INITTY=/dev/tty[1-8]
for tty in $INITTY; do
 setleds -D +num < $tty
done

to eg. /etc/rc.sysinit or create upstart job.