This is a reminder to myself, and dissemination of ‘general knowledge’. If you run linux, and you want to change the resolution that your computer displays the console on, this is for you.

Go into /boot/grub/menu.lst (or wherever your grub configuration/menu file exists), and add vga=xxx to the end of the kernel line.

On RHEL, it ends up looking something like this:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.EL ro root=XXX=/ rhgb quiet vga=794

For RHEL, that was it, although you would likely have to add the vga argument every time you upgrade your kernel.

On our ubuntu servers, there is a place where you can specify kernel options. This way, it gets added every time a new kernel is installed. It looks something like this:
# defoptions=quiet splash vga=794

You must also run update-grub on ubuntu so that the file is regenerated properly.

Lastly, reboot, and enjoy your spiffy new console.

794 is the code for 16 bit color at 1280×1024. For more codes, you can checkout the original article here.