Debian Hardware :: Poor 2d Performance Lenny Radeon 9600 Firmware?

i had recently loaded squeeze and had an issue with the 2d performance.i.e when being prompted for the root password, the shading slowly draws down the screen several times before stopping at the final darker shade. i then added the linux-firmware-nonfree package. all worked extremely well, even compiz, but i don't really care about compiz. i just loaded it to see how it performed. i then distro-hopped a bit and when i came back to squeeze the first thing i did was add the package, but the video is acting like i haven't added the package. i've searched for an answer, but have not found anything recent to indicate if xorg was upgraded or what.stable lenny works fine, but i'd rather have the nice console fonts when not in x and more up to date apps like gimp and xsane in squeeze.