Numlock on startup

[alexmarin86]

Hi. I am desperately trying to enable numlock at startup but i can’t. I’ve tried pretty much all the suggestions i could find online such as:

• modifying the keyboards.xml file
• installing numpadx and following the steps to enable it
• turn on the option in settings > keyboards
• mkinitcpio: installing mkinitcpio-numlock and editing the mkinitcpio.conf file
  What’s extremely frustrating is that i did manage to turn it on installing a tool on another laptop a while back, but i can’t remember the name of it.
  I feel completely defeated and i need help. if anyone knows what tool or a different method that i haven’t already tried, please let me know. Thank you in advance.

[maycne.sonahoz]

@alexmarin86

I am desperately trying to enable numlock at startup but i can’t.

Is it when your Xfce session starts? Or earlier at the login screen (lightdm)?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Activating_numlock_on_bootup

[jrichard326]

Have you tried installing numlockx?

[alexmarin86]

It’s at login screen. i did edit the lightdm.conf file in the etc/lightdm directory as instructed in the link you provided prior to my post, but it did not help. i have literally scoured the interned and have tried over 7 different methods (even though i listed 4, my brain was mush at the time of my post because i had spent 4 hours trying to make it work)
i remember specifically using a gui program on my older laptop bu i can’t remember its name. i tried to find the forum thread i got the idea from but nothing ever popped up. wish i had documented that program now, i usually do it for things that can be a hassle.

[alexmarin86]

i have. in fact numpadx was a typo, what i meant was numlockx. again, my brain was mush at the time due to spending hours trying to fix the issue.

[maycne.sonahoz]

@alexmarin86

i remember specifically using a gui program on my older laptop bu i can’t remember its name

lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings?

[jrichard326]

Have you tried in Settings Editor as in the screenshot:

[alexmarin86]

I hadn’t tried that one until now, but i don’t see any options for enabling numlock, maybe i’m missing something?

[alexmarin86]

Yes, i did try that one. Unfortunately i’m not allowed to media share or post links. Maybe because my account age is too short to be trusted? there are some differences to yours though. i do have the numlock key set to true, but i also have RestoreNumlock set to true. Should i disable that? also, i don’t have the KeyRepeat group, but i suppose that shouldn’t affect anything numlock related.
Do you suggest i change something in there?

[Nachlese]

What I found when looking for this is:

Activating numlock on bootup - ArchWiki

same thing @maycne.sonahoz posted already

It seems that the first option is the easiest and cleanest
or the third - extending the getty@ service

pretty much all the other methods seem to only take effect once one is logged in - which is too late, I suppose

[alexmarin86]

I had already tried the first method in that post and it didn’t work, just tried the third one and nothing still.

[Nachlese]

@alexmarin86

mkinitcpio: installing mkinitcpio-numlock and editing the mkinitcpio.conf file

ahh, yes - I didn’t catch that - sorry

I never needed this functionality and only know about it from troubleshooting guides where numlock is apparantly inadvertantly on without the knowledge of the person, leading to password input problems.

Can it not simply be turned on/toggled with a keypress?
I know that I can toggle the state of it with Fn + Num key

I’m sorry for being ignorant and not able to help.

@alexmarin86

What’s extremely frustrating is that i did manage to turn it on installing a tool on another laptop a while back, but i can’t remember the name of it.

I suppose that that laptop does not exist anymore?
Otherwise it should be easy to find out what it was/is …

On some BIOSes there is also an option to toogle it to “on” by default …

[alexmarin86]

I guess i’m going to have to learn to live with turning numlock on every time i boot up my laptop.
The old laptop sadly went to hardware heaven, so there’s no way of knowing now.
As to the bios thing, i did read about it on some forum threads and checked, but i couldn’t find any setting in mine that was related.

[alexmarin86]

Holy crap i fixed it. It was the lightdm config file after all. However, i must warn future users that there are two separate entries named greeter-setup-script and you must update both of them. i did not realize that the first time and there’s no mention of it on the forum post @maycne.sonahoz linked me. Thank you so much for your time and suggestions guys.