The rc.sysinit script calls setsysfont automatically setting the
system font without regard to the default font one may have selected
at boot time via lilo.  This occured in Red Hat 5.0 or 5.1 also, and
the only solution I had was to remove the /sbin/setsysfont execute
permission.

I start my system up with vga=extended in lilo.conf in order to get
an 80x50 text screen.  During rc.sysinit, once setsysfont gets called,
the system switches to 80x25 mode thus killing all my nice real estate.
;o)

I've worked around it with "chmod a-x /sbin/setsysfont" for now.  Perhaps
rm /sbin/setsysfont is better.  ;o)