With a lot of linux distributions the default tty resolution will work with almost all old hardware. You may have noticed that this compatible (default) resolution is klunky and not particularly useful when trying to view large amounts of data. It is infact possible to change the resolution to anything as high as 1280×1024. This is a feature of the linux kernel that can be set at boot time. First look at the table below
| Colour Depth | 640×480 | 800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×1024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 (256) | 769 | 771 | 773 | 775 |
| 15 (32k) | 784 | 787 | 790 | 793 |
| 16 (65k) | 785 | 788 | 791 | 794 |
| 24 (16M) | 786 | 789 | 792 | 795 |
This table enables you to choose your tty resolution and colour depth and you are left with a number e.g. 1024×768 16bit = 791.
This number now needs to be put in to the line of your bootloader where the kernel is loaded. (/boot/grub/menu.lst) I have only ever used grub but im sure it will work with lilo and other boot loaders.
Look for the line like:
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-amd64 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet
and add vga=791 so the line looks like this:
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-amd64 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet vga=791
Now reboot the machine and the tty resolution will be what you set.