{"id":2651,"date":"2022-04-22T01:50:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T01:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2022-04-22T01:52:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T01:52:02","slug":"numlock-and-87-tkl-keyboards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/2022\/04\/22\/numlock-and-87-tkl-keyboards\/","title":{"rendered":"Numlock and 87-TKL Keyboards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/h3>\n

Most 87-key TKL keyboards don’t have numlock. But at least one does: the Unicomp Mini-M<\/a>. Even though I almost never use numlock, it’s nice to have. When enabled on the Mini-M, the 7-8-9, u-i-o, j-k-l, m,,,. keys become the numpad. That means you can’t type. So it’s a nice feature only as long as it doesn’t get in the way.<\/p>\n

But it does get in the way! The system boots up, you enter your password and login fails. Then you look at the keyboard and see that you typed in a bunch of garbage because numlock was on. We need a way to reverse the default and turn numlock off. This requires several config changes.<\/p>\n

BIOS<\/h4>\n

Boot into the system BIOS, search through the menus and you’ll find a setting for the default numlock state. Turn it off.<\/p>\n

Linux Settings<\/h4>\n

On Linux you have a few more changes to make. First, install the numlockx utility:<\/p>\n

sudo apt install numlockx<\/pre>\n
Next, edit file \/etc\/default\/numlockx<\/strong> to set the default state. Edit this file and set the last line to “keep” mode.<\/p>\n
# Configuration file for numlockx\r\n\r\n# State of numlog on start of X session\r\n# Accepts following options:\r\n#  auto - turns numlock on unless ran on laptop\r\n#  on - turns numlock on\r\n#  off - turns numlock off\r\n#  keep - does not change numlock state\r\n#  toggle - toggles numlock state\r\nNUMLOCK=keep<\/pre>\n
Next, list the directory \/usr\/share\/lightdm\/lightdm.conf.d<\/strong> and check if there is a file called 50-xubuntu-numlock.conf<\/strong>. If there is, edit it. If there is not, create it. Make it look like this:<\/p>\n
[Seat:*]\r\ngreeter-setup-script=\/usr\/bin\/numlockx off<\/pre>\n
The above should be sufficient for the system to never enable numlock. But just to be safe, you can also edit your .profile<\/strong> file and add a command to disable numlock.<\/p>\n
# turn off numlock\r\nnumlockx off<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summary Most 87-key TKL keyboards don’t have numlock. But at least one does: the Unicomp Mini-M. Even though I almost never use numlock, it’s nice to have. When enabled on the Mini-M, the 7-8-9, u-i-o, j-k-l, m,,,. keys become the numpad. That means you can’t type. So it’s a nice feature only as long as … Continue reading Numlock and 87-TKL Keyboards<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2654,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions\/2654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mclements.net\/blogWP\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}