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. -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Tom Swiss