CD to iPod without iTunes.

The simple answer is no, you have to import your CDs to your hard drive before you can put them onto an iPod and you can't copy folders to it if you want them to play. You have to manage your iPod through iTunes or at least through one of the other third party programs that are available. You can of course change the update option of your iPod to "manually manage songs and playlists" then your iPod can have a different set of songs to iTunes. Connect your iPod and in iTunes go to Preferences>iPod, you can amend the option there: Managing Your Songs Manually

However this would mean you are now relying on the iPod as your sole backup, this will give you lots of work reloading your CDs if you ever find you have to restore it. At the very least back up songs you can't replace such as iTunes downloads to CD or DVD before deleting them from your laptop. Alternatively have a look at keeping your songs on an external hard drive, they are quite reasonably priced these days and are capable of providing lots of storage space. You can even make one yourself from a normal new or salvaged PC hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.

What I have been doing with exactly the same situation as you have is to import a few cds at a time, move the imported tracks on the iPod in manual mode, and then delete them from my powerbook (although I do copy the imported tracks to my external backup drive first so i don't have to re-import them again later).