ReRead Partition table

I'm playing around with fdisk and other tools and seems like fdisk tries to reread the partition table after a write command, but it can fail. Although, you can try:

blockdev --rereadpt /dev/hda

It might work if there is no other mounted partitions from that disk.

Frame buffer modes

I'm always wondering my options for the "vga" setting at the grub command line. Here is:

Color depth      | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024
-----------------+-------------------------------------
256        (8bit)|  769      771       773      775
32000     (15bit)|  784      787       790      793
65000     (16bit)|  785      788       791      794
16.7 Mill.(24bit)|  786      789       792      795

The vga= setting only effects the frame buffer, not X (unless you're using the fbdev driver in X). This'll mean that your console will display at this resolution.

Source: http://www.mepis.org/node/2992#comment-10710