My Linux Journal Day 23

Jan, 24, 2008

Posted by George
4 Comments

Today should have been really easy, but it was a bigger deal than I expected. It should be easy to figure out how to get your NUMLOCK key to be on when you boot up right? Wrong. In all of the Windows PC’s I’ve used NUMLOCK is always onwhen booting up, so I expected to find a simple checkbox somewhere in Ubuntu for this simple feature. Nope.

GDM and GNOME

After looking around here’s what worked for me. I run Gnome sessions, so that means I run GDM (I learned form some quick reading). According to Gnome.org’s GDM page , GDM is the Gnome Display Manager that presents you with a graphical logon screen like this one:

GDM login screen

If you like it, you can find this login screen at http://art.gnome.org/themes/gdm_greeter/1374

Ubuntuguide to the Rescue

You can click on the link above and do a lot of scrolling or just use the steps below. For some reason I could not do an apt-get install to install numlockx, here’s what I did:

1) In Synaptic, install numlockx

2) Make a backup of the file you are about to edit. In your console window type:

sudo cp /etc/gdm/Init/Default /etc/gdm/Init/Default.bak
_________________________________________

3) Now back into the console window to edit your file:

gksudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default
_________________________________________

4) Now your file opens in gedit. Scroll down to the very bottom, and just above the bottom line that says “exit 0″ add this and save, then close the file:

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

5) Now if everything’s gone well when you reboot next time you will see your NUMLOCK key is ON.

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Posted in mylinuxjournal by George | 4 Comments

4 Comments "My Linux Journal Day 23"

  • Richard Chapman says:
    January 25, 2008 at 12:00 am

    It shouldn’t be that difficult and in some distributions it isn’t. PCLinuxOS uses KDE as the default desktop. The KDE Control Center lets you control that status of the numlock on startup.

  • George says:
    January 25, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    It would be nice if Ubuntu or Gnome did a little extra to add that same functionality you mention in KDE’s Control Center. I don’t think something so basic should be distro-specific or desktop manager-specific.

  • Richard Chapman says:
    January 28, 2008 at 12:52 am

    There is something you should know about Gnome. The Gnome development team makes no secret about increasing “ease of use” by removing functionality. They have a different “mission statement” from the KDE developers. One test run of each desktop will tell you all you need to know. For some people Gnome matches their needs perfectly. For others (read me) it’s an exercise in futility. To be honest I’ve haven’t seriously tried Gnome for 3 years. But from the little I have seen of it, it won’t be replacing KDE on my desktop.

    I just want to say again that there are people with some very serious computer chops who use Gnome. Linus Torvalds isn’t one of them though. My personal belief is that Gnome is now being developed for enterprise use. In the cube farms where people aren’t supposed to be having fun with their computer. In that respect I think it performs well.

    But on the positive side, this is what makes Linux strong. Having more than one desktop is good. Having more than one distro is good. Everyone in the “community” doesn’t always agree, but they produce a better product than the presiding dictatorship. If enough people complain, Ubuntu will add a utility to switch the numlock on during start up.

  • George says:
    January 28, 2008 at 10:52 am

    I hear what you are saying about KDE and I have used it in the past. Since I’ve used Linux so many times on and off, and always as a secondary machine ‘for fun’, I was trying to learn the basics before moving on. My friend also uses KDE, and I did prefer it last time until I couldn’t get sound to work right, but could in Gnome. Of course, that’s a moot point because its just a setting in either desktop, I just found the right setting in Gnome before KDE.

    I’ve heard about KDE is highly customizable, and I think its time for me to go back to KDE.

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