Numlock on the Login Screen

The manual explains how to turn on numlock after the login. This post: Lubuntu 18.04 Bionic How enable NumLock ON when starting? explains how to turn it on on the login screen, but it’s for Lubuntu 18.04. Is the procedure the same for Lubuntu 22.04.1? I use a password with both letters and numbers.

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The easiest way I find is just changing the BIOS/uEFI/firmware default so it boots with numlock on by default. I’ve not yet encountered a box where this doesn’t work, but its possible not all firmware has a setting that allows for this.

I believe I have a box that defaults to turning on without numlock configured, when I next use it (and re-discover which box it is; its something I only rarely use) I’ll have a look and possibly return with more details (having something to configure myself I guess).

FYI: The manual link you provided was for the stable release; ie. Lubuntu 22.10, but you mentioned 22.04 or the lts release. To read/use the correct manual; you just need to change the word “stable” in the URL to be “lts”. You’ll find the manual links documented here as they can change over time.

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According to the Arch Wiki (which generally has tons of info that applies to distros other than Arch Linux), you should be able to just add a line or two to your /etc/sddm.conf file. (If the file doesn’t exist already, you should be able to create it.)

In a terminal, run sudo nano /etc/sddm.conf, and enter your password. If the file is blank when you open it, type the following text in:

[General]
Numlock=on

Press Ctrl+S to save, and Ctrl+X to exit.

If the file had some data already in it, simply add a Numlock=on line to the end of the [General] section, then save and exit.

Original Arch Wiki page: Activating numlock on bootup - ArchWiki

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Thank you gentlemen! @guiverc: I didn’t know there was more than one manual, I just clicked on “Manual” on the Lubuntu home page. I now found the 22.04 one linked in the Wiki. And I’ll check the uEFI, it’s a laptop without numeric keypad, but I always use it with external keyboard, that could explain it. @ ArrayBolt3: Thank you very much, I assume it will help in Virtualbox. And while I did chance on the Arch Wiki page, I am not yet at the level to follow all that they explain. Plus I didn’t know that Lubuntu used SDDM or how I could find out that it did. I’ll report back how I fared so others could benefit.

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SOLUTION for Virtualbox (physical laptop soon):
Source: VirtualBox numlock weirdness

Command:
VBoxManage setextradata “” GUI/HidLedsSync “0”

Example in my case:
VBoxManage.exe setextradata “Lubuntu 22.04.01 LXQt 1.2” GUI/HidLedsSync “0”

WORKS! My instinct was that the “0” would be the wrong choice, so I initially tried “1”. But no, “0” is what keeps the physical machine’s Numlock and the VM’s numlock in sync.

Host: Win7Pro, VBox 6.1.40, Lubuntu 22.04.1, LXQt 1.2, laptop with external keyboard.

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