Virtually every distro I've tried (usually a LiveCD), whether it will install or not, shows an immediate message on boot of:

You passed an undefined mode number. Press enter to choose, or spacebar/30 seconds to continue.

Selecting mode 0 (80 x 25) resolves the problem sometimes, but this seems to be a default DOS resolution, isn't it?

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated, as I think most of my problems with virtually all distros are linked to this.

Dell 3000 512Mb RAM, 160Gb HDD, 9Gb HDD2 (slave), Intel 82865 graphics controller.

Cheers

What there is a line in the boot section for that kernel called vga=***. It only works if there are framebuffer support for the video card is in the kernel. If it is not built into the kernel then it will not use some of the high res color for the boot messages when starting linux. I do not think there is any for that intel so the high res options will not work.

edit: Looks like there is support for that version of chipset. More than likely since it is new and not fully tested it is not enabled in the kernel. You will need to recompile your kernel to enable this framebuffer support.
edit:

Check this out about what the modes are. http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Vga%3Dxxx

Brian1