how to change scrolling distance in tty terms

[Jason Crain]

Joe Burgess wrote:
> Hello, so I use the tty consoles a good amount (the ones you get to by
> going ctlr-alt f1) and I was wondering if it possible to increase the
> distance you can scroll back.  I know you press shift-pg up to scroll
> back but really it doesn't go very far.  is this possible

I recommend screen, a terminal manager.  It provides a much larger and 
configurable scrollback buffer and a lot of nice features, such as 
running several shell windows on a single terminal.  You can also detach 
screen and leave it running after you log out.