It seems such a small thing. A simple thing. It is just one of those things which will, when it doesn't work properly, drive you around the bend back to front and sideways. As you most probably have guessed from the title I am talking about the numlock function.
Such an insignificant function. On full size keyboards it will toggle the number pad between number mode and arrow key mode. On laptop style keyboards it toggles a virtual number pad hidden away in the alphabetical keys. Oh wait, did I say an insignificant function? I should clarify that.
It seems that distribution developers seem to think it is an insignificant function. So much so that the latest so called user friendly version of Ubuntu has no way to graphically set the numlock status at startup. Neither does Xubuntu. It seems to be a window manager/desktop environment specific problem as KDE to my knowledge allows you to graphically set the numlock status. But, for Linux distributions which are supposed to be user friendly (not just *buntu, Fedora, Debian, Mint, etc.) to not have a numlock setting function installed by default is ridiculous.
Why do I say ridiculous? From experience in watching hundreds of people typing their password in. If their password had numbers in it they automatically use the number pad. Even in their daily work using spreadsheets or anything else that requires numbers they use the number pad. If the numlock is not on by default the following scenario normally happens.
Turn computer on.
Enter password.
Look confused because password is not accepted.
Enter password again.
Look frustrated because password is not accepted.
Press numlock key.
Enter password.
Login is successful and they start working.
The point I wish to make here is that Linux distributions do not act in a user friendly way with regards to the numlock key. They do not even honour the computers BIOS setting like other operating systems do. Even I, a supposedly experienced Linux advocate have been bitten by the numlock problem.
Now you may think it is a small problem and that people will get used to it. They don't. They want to be able to set the numlock behaviour and have it stay set. A quick google on "Linux num lock problem" returns over half a million results. Not a small number. I have even had people want to go back to their previous operating system simply because of this numlock setting.
Sure with Linux you can install a small program called numlockx and add a couple of lines to the startup manager or edit the X config file or even change some init scripts. For distributions like Gentoo I would expect that sort of behaviour but not for distributions targeted at the general population.
What do you think? Am I getting on my high horse for nothing? Is this a non-issue? Should the average computer user have to go searching and edit some confusing code just to gain control of the numlock function?
