Activating Numlock on Bootup

From ArchWiki

Contents 1 TTY (Teletype) Consoles 1-6 2 X.org 2.1 KDM 2.2 KDE4 Users 2.3 GDM 2.4 SLiM

TTY (Teletype) Consoles 1-6

To activate the numlock during normal bootup in TTY consoles 1-6 (tty1 -> tty6), add the following line to /etc/rc.local:

for tty in /dev/tty?; do /usr/bin/setleds -D +num < "$tty"; done

note: Virtual Consoles vc/1 -> vc/6 were superseded by tty1 -> tty6 on the 2009-08-02.

If strange things start to happen (the NumLock LED is on, but the num pad still works as arrow keypad), there seems to be a conflict between setleds and Xserver. Limit the for command only to the first six consoles: for tty in /dev/tty{1..6}; do ...

X.org

If you use startx to start your X session, simply install the numlockx package and add it to your ~/.xinitrc file.

Install numlockx:

# pacman -S numlockx

Add it to ~/.xinitrc before exec:

#!/bin/sh
#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)
#

numlockx &

exec your_window_manager

KDM

If you use KDM as a login manager, add :

numlockx on

to your /usr/share/config/kdm/Xsetup, or to /opt/kde/share/config/kdm/Xsetup if you're using KDM3.

Note that this file lives outside of Pacman's protected area, so it might be overwritten on update without warning or creating a .pacnew file.

KDE4 Users

You may alternatively add a script to your ~/.kde4/Autostart directory:

$ nano ~/.kde4/Autostart/numlockx

Add the following:

#!/bin/sh
numlockx on

And make it executable:

$ chmod +x ~/.kde4/Autostart/numlockx

Note: There is an option in kcontrol (for kde3) and systemsettings (for kde4) to activate numlock at kde start, but it is currently broken.

GDM

First make sure that you have numlockx (from extra) installed. Then, GDM users may add the following code to /etc/gdm/Init/Default:

if [ -x /usr/bin/numlockx ]; then
      /usr/bin/numlockx on
fi

SLiM

In the file /etc/slim.conf find the line:

#numlock             on

and remove the "#"