This depends on a lot of things and often linux switches to graphical mode quite early. Another thing is that some new-ish BIOSes leave the VGA card in non-sta

This depends on a lot of things and often linux switches to graphical mode quite early. Another thing is that some new-ish BIOSes leave the VGA card in non-standard videomode that is 80x25 text mode, but has 8 pixel wide font and same timing as 640x480 graphics mode. The difference is clearly visible on CRT monitor (lower refresh rate but no horizontal black lines between scanlines that are typical for PC text modes). I believe this has to do with fact that some LCD monitors are not capable of reliably maintaining synchronisation in 400-line VGA modes when using VGA input and many TVs and similar HDMI-connected devices simply don't support 400-line modes at all.