Bug 14061

Summary:	Cannot use numlock if placed on shifted key; invokes Pointer_EnableKeys
Product:	xkeyboard-config	Reporter:	Mohammed Adnène Trojette <adn>
Component:	General	Assignee:	xkb
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium	CC:	acolomb, alexeyten+deb, dmitry.kurochkin, svu
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	Other
OS:	All
URL:	http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=460246
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description Mohammed Adnène Trojette 2008-01-13 10:38:09 UTC

Here is a bug reported to Debian's BTS.

------------
Some keyboards, such as those on many IBM ThinkPads, have the num lock
key on the shifted scroll lock key.  (Why they didn't do that the
other way around I wish I knew.)  As a result, when pressing num lock,
it always gets interpreted with the shift modifier, resulting in
Pointer_EnableKeys instead.
------------

A discussion has already taken place on <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xkeyboard-config/+bug/35080>. And it seems that Ubuntu decided to modify the following block:

  /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc:
  key <NMLK> { [ Num_Lock, Pointer_EnableKeys ] };

What do you think would be the best solution?

Comment 1 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2008-01-13 15:31:45 UTC

What I propose is changing "thinkpad" section in symbols/inet by adding the following:

 key <NMLK> {   [  Num_Lock, Num_Lock         ]       };

Would it work for you?

Comment 2 Mohammed Adnène Trojette 2008-04-30 18:36:23 UTC

*** Bug 15784 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3 Dmitry Kurochkin 2008-05-18 07:16:54 UTC

Hi!

I also had issues with numlock key on thinkpad t61p.
I put grp_led:num XkbOptions to indicate layout and it did not work. Led did not light up when layout is changed. But xkbvleds showed that num led is on and when shift+numlock or FN+numlock is pressed the led turns on.

I have solved this by going to BIOS settings Config -> Keyboard/Mouse and setting Numlock option to Synchronized.

After that numled indication works as expected. Xev shows that FN+numlock generates Num_Lock and Shift+numlock generates Pointer_EnableKeys. That looks correct to me.

Also I have tried Sergey's proposal. I added

 key <NMLK> {   [  Num_Lock, Num_Lock         ]       };

to symbols/inet and switched the BIOS setting back to Independent. This does not help (I have checked xmodmap -pke that changes are actually there).

I do not completely understand the problem, but it looks like in independent numlock mode (which was default on my laptop), numlock is handled internally by firmware.

So the bottom line: switch bios numlock option to synchronized. Now FN+numlock works as numlock and Shift+numlock works as Shift+numlock. No changes to xkb are needed.

Hope that helps. If you need any additional info or help I am ready to do testing, debugging, etc.

Regards,
  Dmitry

Comment 4 Josh Triplett 2008-09-08 23:16:06 UTC

*** Bug 8412 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2008-12-22 15:44:18 UTC

I guess Dmitry's advice provides the required solution. Thanks Dmitry!

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