http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml?part=1&chap=10 The optional framebuffer section describes manythings, but not how to actuall use it. Optional: Framebuffer If you have configured your kernel with framebuffer support (or you used genkernel's default kernel configuration), you can activate it by adding a vga and/or a video statement to your bootloader configuration file. 64-bit systems must use the the vesafb driver, and so will need to set the vga statement. The vga statement controls the resolution and color depth of your framebuffer screen for vesafb. As stated in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt (which gets installed when you install a kernel source package), you need to pass the VESA number corresponding to the requested resolution and color depth to it. The following table lists the available resolutions and colordepths and matches those against the value that you need to pass on to the vga statement. 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 256 0x301 0x303 0x305 0x307 32k 0x310 0x313 0x316 0x319 64k 0x311 0x314 0x317 0x31A 16M 0x312 0x315 0x318 0x31B The video statement controls framebuffer display options. It needs to be given the framebuffer driver (vesafb for 2.6 kernels, or vesa for 2.4 kernels) followed by the control statements you wish to enable. All variables are listed in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt, but we'll inform you about three most-used options: Control Description ywrap Assume that the graphical card can wrap around its memory (i.e. continue at the beginning when it has approached the end) mtrr:n Setup MTRR registers. n can be: 0 - disabled 1 - uncachable 2 - write-back 3 - write-combining 4 - write-through The result of those two statements could be something like vga=0x318 video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap or video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap,1024x768-32@85. Remember (or write down) this setting; you will need it shortly. no mention in this chapter about where to use it.
A few lines further: "If you need to pass any additional options to the kernel, simply add them to the end of the kernel command. We're already passing one option (root=/dev/hda3 or real_root=/dev/hda3), but you can pass others as well, such as the video statement for framebuffer as we discussed previously."
