Dave Sherohman wrote:
>
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 12:28:53AM +0200, Ian Balchin wrote:
> > To the point, why does debian switch off the numlock in the first
> > place when it has been set on at bios level, and surely most people
> > want it on anyway?
>
> That's not Debian-specific. The Linux kernel ignores most BIOS
> settings and uses more direct methods to interact with the hardware.
>
> As for why numlock defaults to off when, as you've stated, most
> people seem to prefer it on, I would guess that either a) the
> hardware defaults to numlock off and the kernel doesn't touch it or
> b) Linus prefers it to be off and nobody's convinced him that other
> people don't share that preference.
note that numlock is generally considered a modifier in X (and is set
up as modifier in debian) and can screw up your keyboard bindings
(mostly in WM but for some other apps asd well)
erik
