How does everyone get a synced console after a fresh install?

[Chris]

OK I just installed a fresh copy of 13 from an official
memstick image. All went as expected. But upon reboot,
I'm missing about 4 to 5 characters on the left hand
side of the screen. I know vesa is built into GENERIC.
But vidcontrol(1) won't help. I've tried both sc(4), and
vt(4). Is textmode no longer supported?

Thanks for any, and all insight into solving this.

--Chris