Setting Command line to 80 x 25 ascii mode

[stan]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:11:32 +0530
Sanjay Arora <sanjay.k.arora at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I added vga=ask in the grub.conf The system allowed me to list the
> > modes
> available. The listing itself was in 80x25 mode. I selected mode 0
> (80x25) but after booting the console was again in high resolution
> mode.
> 
> How do I get my non-graphic console (I think its a getty terminal) in
> my display adapter's mode 0?

As Tom said, you can't.  His suggestion of setting the font will work,
sort of, especially if you make the font bold.

I asked this same question, 'How is it possible to set the console
resolution to a different value than the GUI?', and a developer told me
that it is not possible using nouveau (not sure about proprietary).
What I did is run with the old xv driver for nvidia, and add   nomodeset
vga=0x317     on the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst.  0x317 is
110x40, I think 0x315 is 80x25.

Your video hardware might not be nvidia, but this should give you some
ideas to try.

In the GUI Ctl-Alt-Bksp  will flip through the available resolutions
(at least it does here).