no console with radeon + kernel mode setting?

Hello.

This may be trivial or a known problem, if so please feel free to just point
me to where the answer is.
For some time now, in debian sid it has become a problem to use the nonfree
fglrx driver with gnome 3, and with the latest xorg. So I finally bit the
bullet and switched to the free driver on my laptop (sporting a mobility
radeon hd 3400 series). The good: xorg appears to work fine, even if quite a
bit slower, but since I am not after high-end 3D graphics, it's quite ok for
me. The bad: as soon as kernel mode setting is enabled at boot time, the
console disappears completely and is not visible anymore.

If I disable kernel mode setting, then the console stays visible, but gnome
3 will not work.  Is there a known configuration, setting, workaround with
which I can have a working text console *and* working xorg with kernel mode
setting enabled (to run gnome 3 efficiently)?  Since shit occasionally
happens, especially following sid, I am used to sometimes drop to a plain
text mode console to fix things, and having a laptop which is completely
unusable until the graphic login manager fires up is, to say the least,
disturbing...

Thanks in advance, bye
Giacomo

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Giacomo Mulas <[email protected]>
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OSSERVATORIO ASTRONOMICO DI CAGLIARI
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