Compaq R4000 laptop, Yenta driver said "Fish. Please report this."

[Rich]

Fascinating.

In the conclusion to this weird behavior, my friend decided to,
without informing me, reinstall Gentoo from a stage 1 (complete source
rebuild from the toolchain on the CD, for those unfamiliar with
Gentoo).

Her problem went away.

I'll be damned if I know why. Identical kernel, right down to the config.

Thank you, once again, to everyone who tried to help.

- Rich