Hello Markus,

Well, your very helpful post plus a little independent research on my part brings an answer to a couple of things I wasn't understanding about the boot and loading processes with linux. And I certainly hope that anyone else finding themselves at sea on these things will benefit from my experience.

What was missing here was understanding that the alternatives available with respect to the character of the initial display begin with choosing between a text approach and the framebuffer approach. Text requires the cheat code vga=normal or vga=ext and framebuffer requires - as you've indicated above - a choice of screen resolution, 600x400, 800x600, etc., plus vga=xxx. I've compared knoppix screen=800x600 vga=normal nodhcp with knoppix screen=800x600 vga=771 nodhcp, for example, and, frankly, prefer the appearance of the text display. The text appears larger, suitably filling the screen, where the framebuffer text, while a good bit larger than it was earlier, is still too small for my tastes. It's my guess that lowering the size of the screen resolution together with a lower vga= would be the only way to increase the size of the text a bit more. Might you know the framebuffer vga= settings for a resolution of 600x400? I can try those.

In any event many thanks for your reply and your help.

jlowell