Is It Safe To Remove These PCMCIA Modules?

[Scarletdown <scarletdown@gmail.com>]

Now that I have this old laptop running with kernel 2.6.12-386, I want
to go ahead and remove the old 2.4 kernel that Sarge initially
installed.  When I do an apt-get --purge remove on the 2.4 kernel image,
I am informed that:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386* kernel-pcmcia-modules-2.4.27-2-386*

So before I continue, I need to know for 100% certain that it would be
safe to remove those pcmcia modules, since if it isn't safe, then that
would mean my NIC would be rendered inoperable.

I used Synaptic to search for pcmcia-modules, but no 2.6 kernel-specific
ones came up.  So, are these built into the 2.6 kernel, or do I need to
hold this module back when I remove the old 2.4 kernel?