use setleds in console (will not work in X) and numlockx in X (not maintained for redhat) putting this in /etc/rc.d/rc.local will do it automatically for console: echo -n "Turning on numlock ... " for tty in /dev/tty[1-6] /dev/tty1[2]; do setleds -D +num < $tty & done echo "done " Tom