In GRUB2 the preferred method of setting framebuffer resolution (to GRUB and the kernel) is to edit /etc/default/grub to contain these variables:

• GRUB_GFXMODE sets the resolution of GRUB
• GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX controls whether the linux kernel will keep the resolution, and if you want the linux kernel to use different resolution than GRUB, you can set it with this variable in form widthxheight.

To show all modes you can use:

• hwinfo --framebuffer in linux terminal
• vbeinfo in GRUB prompt

Sample configuration of framebuffer resolution

These lines are inserted to /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

In order to generate the changes, run

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Excerpt from GNU GRUB Manual 2.00

‘GRUB_GFXMODE’

Set the resolution used on the ‘gfxterm’ graphical terminal. Note that you can only use modes which your graphics card supports via VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE), so for example native LCD panel resolutions may not be available. The default is ‘auto’, which tries to select a preferred resolution. See gfxmode.

‘GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX’

Set to ‘text’ to force the Linux kernel to boot in normal text mode, ‘keep’ to preserve the graphics mode set using ‘GRUB_GFXMODE’, ‘widthxheight’[‘xdepth’] to set a particular graphics mode, or a sequence of these separated by commas or semicolons to try several modes in sequence. See gfxpayload.

Depending on your kernel, your distribution, your graphics card, and the phase of the moon, note that using this option may cause GNU/Linux to suffer from various display problems, particularly during the early part of the boot sequence. If you have problems, set this option to ‘text’ and GRUB will tell Linux to boot in normal text mode.

References

• ArchWiki's page about GRUB.
• GNU GRUB Manual 2.00.

Maybe it is deprecated by grub2, however it should still work and must continue to work. It works for me using grub2 and debian wheezy as well as rhel7.3 (confirmed 01-2017). Also according to the official documentation it is not deprecated:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/x86/boot.txt

If the command line provided by the boot loader is entered by the user, the user may expect the following command line options to work. They should normally not be deleted from the kernel command line even though not all of them are actually meaningful to the kernel.

vga= here is either an integer (in C notation, either decimal, octal, or hexadecimal) or one of the strings "normal" (meaning 0xFFFF), "ext" (meaning 0xFFFE) or "ask" (meaning 0xFFFD). This value should be entered into the vid_mode field, as it is used by the kernel before the command line is parsed.

And https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/svga.txt will tell you all you need to know. Below a few examples of resolutions I commonly use:

vga=0x31b --> 1280x1024x32
vga=0x34d --> 1600x900x32
vga=0x31e --> 1600x1200x32

To get a list of supported modes use:

vga=ask

For a 1024×768x24 screen which I found works on pretty much all systems and monitors I use (this time in decimal and in hex):

vga=792
vga=0x318

When you set the mode, try to also include the bit depth in /etc/default/grub, e.g.:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1600x900x24

Also add this line:

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

Run sudo update-grub, reboot and let us know if it worked.

Try this:

1. Open terminal, sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub
2. Change the resolution you need in GRUB_GFXMODE=
3. Add this line right below it >> GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
4. Save & Exit
5. Type in terminal: sudo update-grub
6. Then finally: sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
7. Reboot

To get this to work for me, I followed the instructions in: https://askubuntu.com/a/18463

Steps taken for me

Become root user

su

Open /etc/default/grub.

Find GRUB_GFXMODE= ... and change it to:

GRUB_GFXMODE=800x600
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD=800x600x32

Edit /etc/grub.d/00_header

Find if [ "x${GRUB_GFXMODE}" = "x" ] ; and change it to:

if [ "x${GRUB_GFXMODE}" = "x" ] ; then GRUB_GFXMODE=800x600 ; fi
if [ "x${GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD}" = "x" ] ; then GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD=800x600x32 ; fi

Find set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE} and change it to:

set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}
set gfxpayload=${GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD}

Run:

update-grub2

Context

I got this working today. I therefore do not know how stable the fix is - in terms of updates being applied to grub or the linux kernel. I hope someone else can clarify whether these settings files every get overwritten by upgrades.