Modify the scrollback buffer in console

[Girish Venkatasubramanian <girishvs@gmail.com>]

Hello,
I am desperately trying to find out how to increase the size of the
scrollback buffer in the non-graphical mode console (no X).

I am running a stock debian etch distribution without any X manager,
starting in runlevel 2. The machine boots up and I sign into the
console. Then, say I do an "ls -R /". This command will produce many
screens of output. Using the Shift+PgUp, I can scrollback by a few
screens-worth of lines - but the number of lines I can scrollback is
limited. I would like to increase this.

I need this to watch the output of some long running make (and
redirecting the output to a file does not work satisfactorily). I have
thought about using screen, but if there is a way to do it natively,
that would work the best.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.