Comment 21 for bug 226273

OK, no success with other kernels (tried 2.6.33 and 2.6.34-rc1).

@Marc:
How did you "setup" the framebuffer device on your machines?

I don't know if it is relevant but I have to state that I'm not using KMS (because the HD4770 still isn't supported) and so I have to revert to UMS via radeon.modeset=0 command line. And so I only get the plymouth text splash thing. That is somewhat strange as even grub2 is configured for another resolution (1920x1440).

Running vbeinfo inside grub also yields a ton of available resolutions so the VESA stuff should be working correctly. Although I must admit that non of the resolutions listed by that complies to the "official" resolutions of my monitor delivered via EDID (which are 1280x800 and 2560x1600).

Running "hwinfo --framebuffer" shows up this:

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
  [Created at bios.464]
  Unique ID: rdCR.zobvqQpNPrC
  Hardware Class: framebuffer
  Model: "(C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc. RV740"
  Vendor: "(C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc. "
  Device: "RV740"
  SubVendor: "ATI ATOMBIOS"
  SubDevice:
  Revision: "01.00"
  Memory Size: 16 MB
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd0ffffff (rw)
  Mode 0x0300: 640x400 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
...

I don't have comprehensive knowledge about the Linux internals here but that output seems to me like there should be framebuffer support available.