> hmm, How can I get the up and down arrow keys to work in X?

Uh?  It's not in the FAQ?  Well, okay, like this:

Put the following two lines in your .xmodmaprc file:

keycode 0x3D =  Down
keycode 0x3E =  Up

then put the following line in your .xinitrc file (preferably at the
top of it):

xmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprc

That's it!

ken