Im a complete newbie to linux

My video card on the laptop im laoding is a savage card
When i go into the gui i cant move the resolution above 640x480 and i want to move it higher and i was reading the bugs and it mentioned something about passing cheat code arugments at the boot prompt but i dont know where that is.

I have knoppix installed to the HD vi sudo knoppix-installer


Any help is greatly appreaciated