Ubuntu – Why are the Caps Lock and Num lock indicators not working on the keyboard

keyboard

Recently I've upgraded my Ubuntu.

When I press the Caps-Lock its indicator on my keyboard turns on, but it doesn't turn off when I press it again!

And also I've got problem with NumLock key. When I press it, it's light indicator doesn't turn on but NumLock has actually been activated!

Is it a bug?

Best Answer

The problem is because of the inappropriate driver used. Ubuntu's default drivers might not suite your keyboard. If You have a dual boot use the keyboard on windows to confirm it is because of Ubuntu only. If yes then you will have to try additional drivers that might be provided by Manufacturer or Download from Internet. There is a additional driver option for Ubuntu in the dash. Use it to solve your problem.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Beep on caps and num lock not working

Its not clear to me whether the original feature was meant to invoke the "bell" on the mainboard speaker, or use the desktop audio system. But this feature seems to have been broken in Ubuntu for several years. I just checked it with a Ubuntu 14.04 live CD and it definitely still does not work.

Its a shame, as this feature would not only be useful for people with accessibility needs, but for everyone; after all its easy to accidentally bump the Caps Lock key without noticing it.

The caps lock indicator light on most keyboards is a piddly little thing at the opposite end of the keyboard (really clever!), and on some laptops it is absent or is a micro-LED tucked under the lip of the laptop so you have to hold it up to eye-level to see the damn thing (there should be a special hell for the people who designed that 'feature').

There are various bug reports about this issue, none of which seem to have received any serious attention. Pretty disappointing, when Windows provides this feature but Ubuntu can't be bothered.

There is a "fix" mentioned here: "Can I make my Ubuntu make sounds when I press Caps Lock etc.?" (I have not reproduced the content of that article as its rather long). I have not yet tried that suggestion.

Ubuntu – Reliable keyboard layout switching with Caps Lock

Starting from Ubuntu 13.10, Unity/Gnome moved the keyboard layout changing control from X server to higher level tool: unity-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon plugin to add support for multiple X input methods. So the layout change function in X is just disabled.

Same for Caps key, X interprets it as capital lock. When you assign it to layout changing in Unity settings. It will do both as X is not aware of that. So you have to disable caps function in X.

The workaround explained in bug report mentioned by Alex.O seem to do that. Which is the same as running:
```
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['caps:none']"
```
caps:none means Caps Lock is disabled, to see all Caps key X supported functions, try:
```
more /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst | grep caps
```

To get default function back:

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Beep on caps and num lock not working

Ubuntu – Reliable keyboard layout switching with Caps Lock

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