How to activate VESA mode on boot-up?

[Robert Latest <boblatest@googlemail.com>]

Hello folks,

recently I accidentally hosed my old kernel image (it was something
that ended on -k7). The only reason I'd kept it was because I couldn't
get anything but the ugly boxy 80-by-something text mode console fonts
to work with the 2.6.26-x-686 line of Debian prepackaged kernels.

Anyway, rather than try and go hunting for an old -k7 kernel I'd like
to finally get a decent video mode working on with a current
2.6.26-2-686 (stable release).

Long story short, when I put "vga=ask" in grub's menu.lst, I can't
enter anything but the 80-by-something modes. I've searched the Net up
and down, have tried the 0x30... modes in hex, in decimal , with the
'0x' and without ... nothing. The kernel simply doesn't know any
additional modes (and doesn't list them. either).

What can I do? I like working in the console a lot, but I need more
and better-looking characters on screen.

Thanks,
robert