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