#### "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

# The Answer Guy

#### By James T. Dennis, linux-questions-only@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

### Conflict: Num-Lock, X Window Managers, and pppd

From Victor J. McCoy on 11 Oct 1998

Please publish this. After the original question, I received a number of inquiries indicating that I'm not the only one with this problem.

Last year LG22 (Oct97) I asked a question regarding window manager and pppd anomaly.

Quick answer: Num-Lock key activation.

Long answer:

I finally got fed up with the problem, so I tore my machine apart, down to a single SCSI controller (with only my root drive), keyboard, modem.

The problem continued. I upgraded to redhat 5.0 since, and the problem persisted, different Window managers also exhibit problems (just differently). I even changed to Caldera lite 1.2, and I still had the problem.

Believe it or not, it turned out to be my NUM-LOCK key. If NL is active, then the WM screws up EVERY TIME; different WMs just screw up differently. I would turn on Num-lock to ping a host IP addr and that would be all it took.

I have a MS natural keyboard (Of all the products MS has, software sucks, but I love the hardware [KB and Mouse].) I'm sure that's not the problem, because I've only recently acquired the KB and the problem has been around for a couple of years.

I would like to know if this is a widespread problem. Surely, I'm not one of very few people to use the numeric keypad.

Victor J. McCoy

> I'll just let this message speak for itself. I'm not really sure what it's saying but it sounds like a call for other people to do some testing. What happens if you have your NumLock key active when you start up and user your ppp link from within an X session.

> As for ways to try to alleviate the problem:

- Change to a newer (2.1.x) kernel and a new pppd (must do that to use PPP under the new kernels anyway).
- Try a different X server. If you're currentlly using XFree86, consider tying Xig or Metro-X (one of the commercial X suites for Linux).

> ... I don't know of good ways to troubleshoot or isolate this, off hand. Look in your syslog (`/var/log/messages`) for "ooops" or similar messages from the kernel. Try strace on the X server and the window managers, the pppd (also run it under full debugging and kdegug). Try adding `ipfwadm` (or `ipchains`) rules with the `-o` switch (to "output" details of every packet to your syslogs). You could also capture `tcpdump`'s from the `ppp0` interface during the whole affair.

> It's probably something specific to your hardware --- since you've changed your software completely. I'll be curious if you can isolate the problem to a specific library function or system call.

##### Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Linux Gazette Issue 34 November 1998

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