If you can boot from this PCMCIA device (which is a platform specific
feature, and not something you should necessarily expect to be able to
do), then you can load an initrd image from it. So the issue reverts
to the distribution maintainers' choice of supported installation
modes. I don't know whose CD you were using, but Red Hat has chosen,
and documented their choice, to support this type of installation
using boot diskettes.
The *only* strong argument I've heard for putting PCMCIA in the kernel
from the standpoint of *functionality* is that in systems that are
severely memory constrained, the overhead of an initrd image can be
unacceptable.
-- Dave Hinds
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