I was able to use the Gentoo [1] installation disk to boot the laptop, get the dying harddrive mounted (had to turn off DMA (Direct Memory Access) operation in the IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) device driver to keep the kernel from crashing) and rsync all the important files to my main server. But that still left me with a dead laptop, and now a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game that pretty much requires a laptop (since Bob is doing the whole online thing, as Bob is now using kLoOge.Werks [2] to help run the game).
It was then I realized I had a copy of Knoppix [3] lying around. A live CD (Compact Disc) distribution of Linux. I popped in the CD and in a few minutes was greeted with a live Linux system, running X [4] and already on the network. Not too bad. The default windowing manager of KDE (K Desktop Environment) [5] is a bit sluggish (then again, running of a CD isn't exactly a speedy experience either) but there are other options. TWM (Tom's Window Manager) [6] is very lightweight (not as lightweight as 9wm [7] but more usable than said 9wm) and IceWM [8] is also fairly lightweight (well, compared to something like Enlightenment [9] or KDE (K Desktop Environment)). Knoppix makes the system usable, until I can get a replacement harddrive for the system.
Now, only if I can stop playing solitare on the darned thing …
[2] http://www.kloogeinc.com/werks/index.htm
[5] http://www.plig.org/xwinman/kde.html
[6] http://www.plig.org/xwinman/vtwm.html
[7] http://www.plig.org/xwinman/archive/9wm/
[8] http://www.plig.org/xwinman/icewm.html