Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of 5square
5square

asked on

Numeric "keypad" stuck on when using laptop keyboard

This is a weird one: I almost always run my Thinkpad R40 (running Fedora 9) while docked. When undocked, however, the laptop keyboard is useless because the "numlock" seems to be stuck ON. Therefore "u i o p" = "7 8 9 -" and ""j k l ;" = "4 5 6 +"  etc.

I've set the BIOS for NumLock to off (actually, I've tried all three options to no avail). The blue "Fn key + Numlock" combination doesn't toggle the NumLock status either.

This only happens in Gnome 2.22 sessions. The X greeter screen doesn't suffer from this and neither does KDE 4 (but that desktop sucks in so many other ways that it's not an option). Text mode (non-X) is fine also. It's got to be something in Gnome, therefore. Your theories are most welcome.
Avatar of rindi
rindi
Flag of Switzerland image

Use KDE 3.5. It is a lot better than gnome and also works better than KDE4.
Avatar of 5square
5square

ASKER

Reverting to KDE 3.5 wouldn't be easy on this system. I could just see it breaking a whole lor of things. Besides, I always found that Gnome offers sharper text which is important with my poor vision.
Are you sure it isn't already installed? Most Distro's that come with KDE 4 also install KDE3.5 by default. Gnome in my point of view is the worst GUI there is. If the system doesn't work with KDE, I use XFCE, but never gnome.
Avatar of 5square

ASKER

3.5 is not on this system. I realize there's a lot of strong feelings about one's favorite desktop, but I stick with Gnome since it's the default for Fedora and I like a lot of its apps over their KDE equivalents. That said, I may be forced in the long run to switch to KDE if I can't get my keyboard back.
Try running the "xev" program and verify that you get the "NumLock" action from the key combo you use. On my T43 it's [Shift + NumLk] that toggles NumLock.
/RID
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of gheist
gheist
Flag of Belgium image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of 5square

ASKER

The rpm was actually numlockx, and uninstalling it did the trick. Thanks!
This package is good with full keyboard in text mode. Otherwise I do not understand reason every vendor pushes that for astonishment of unaware.