Installing laptops with PCMCIA cards using a floppy disk

From FAIWiki

FAI doesn't come with PCMCIA card support by default, so you need to create a custom kernel. In addition to the configuration options mentioned on that page, ensure that the following options are set to "y".

CONFIG_PCMCIA=y
CONFIG_NET_PCMCIA=y
CONFIG_YENTA=y

The PCMCIA driver needs some script and a file system for enabling drivers. But since no filesystem is available before the PCMCIA driver is activated (because you are trying to mount it using NFS), a deadlock occurs. The PCMCIA driver can't load because the nfsroot isn't mounted and the nfsroot can't be mounted because the PCMCIA driver isn't activated. The way to resolve that problem is to use a ramdisk (initrd).