[AktiviX] laptop with no hard-disc and remote access

[Josh Robinson]

(sorry if this comes twice: i got a failure message last time)

an interesting problem: solutions (creative or otherwise) welcome.

i have a 3-year-old Toshiba Satellite, which was running RedHat, but teh
hard drive crashed. i'm not keen on finding out how much it would cost to
get that fixed.

however, i have a desktop running debian, which is always on (i mean, they
crash so often!!) and permanently networked.

would it be possible to run a CD-version of some sort of GNU-linux on the
laptop, connect to the university ethernet (the laptop has a network
card), and do something along the lines of running programs on my desktop,
but remotely? (this probably isn't very well-worded, as i don't know quite
what it is i want to do!)

basically, the aim is to be able to take the laptop into various libraries
(network access is available in all of them, and i have my own IP address
which i can use), and then use OOo writer (and perhaps Firebird and a
mail-client). is this possible without a functioning hard-drive?

and if so, which CD-based distro would be any good?

thanks,

josh