Hey nautilus_1987!
About numlock and flux, i dunno, i never bothered with numlock
To get a default config back for your kernel you can do a make oldconfig in /usr/src/linux after doing make mrproper)
For empying a file you could also echo > FILE (there are TWO spaces between echo and >) and this will send a blank string to FILE deleting everything inside it.
for xscreensaver tro to put only "exec xscreensaver" in .xinitrc, then start X and run xscreensaver-demo to configure it.
Looking though the slackware book i didnt find anything about pausing a process, you can background it and foreground it but i didnt find how to pause it, probably because Linux is a true multitasking system and can handle to run more than one process at the same time But if you really have to pause a process i suppose theres a way by sending it some kind of signal...
HTH
-NSKL

Hello NSKL!
Wooohoooo! Everything is working
Life is cool. I am sitting under Slack 8.1, fully configured, listening to
Avril Lavigne - Complicated, drinking capuchino, having buddies over msg board, asking and answering questions Isn't it cool?!!!
thnx NSKL
glad to see you again

What about suspending task:
#to pause
kill -s STOP task_pid
#to continue
kill -s CONT task_pid