On Tuesday 27 October 2009 09:10:13 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> You enabled scrollback so now the console has retained enough of the kernel
> console output that you can scroll back to the beginning without using all
> 128K.
> 
> 
> 
> Symbol: VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK_SIZE [=256]
> Prompt: Scrollback Buffer Size (in KB)
>   Defined at drivers/video/console/Kconfig:37
>   Depends on: HAS_IOMEM && VT && VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK
> 
> Symbol: VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK [=y]
> Prompt: Enable Scrollback Buffer in System RAM
>   Defined at drivers/video/console/Kconfig:22
>   Depends on: HAS_IOMEM && VT && VGA_CONSOLE

Not sure this is related with the OP's problem, I have noticed that on my 
system I can scroll up in a console if it displays the output of a command, 
e.g. ls, but I cannot scroll up on the boot messages.  Also, I cannot scroll 
up on the log messages on VT12.  Is there something that I need to set up in 
the kernel?  In the old days (perhaps different machine?) I used to be able to 
scroll up in both.

$ cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep SCROLLBACK
CONFIG_VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK=y
CONFIG_VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK_SIZE=128
-- 
Regards,
Mick