RS> I don't think in-kernel will be enough. pcmica services depend on the RS> card manager deamon to detect device insertions and register the RS> device. cardmgr is user space.
No, you're a bit wrong. PCMCIA services do not _depend_ on cardmgr. They may take advantage of it, but do not depend on it. The only case when you need cardmgr is for removable (not potentially, but actually) devices. If you place your CF card into EPIA MII once and for all, you can easily load all your pcmcia drivers manually (or put them in-kernel) and have a working PCMCIA IDE.
I did a test where I did exactly that. And the IDE device did not appear until I ran cardmgr even though both the card bridge driver and ide-cs were compiled in.
I'm guessing thought that cardmgr just knows the right /proc/ things to tickle to make the IDE device appear. Do you happen to know what those are?