Hello,

yes, sysinst is really quite horrid. Another problem is that the
installation is "linear", that is, a sequence of steps in predefined
order. If any of them fail, you are thrown to the beginning. For
example, if you are installing from a network and it fails (e.g. because
the NFS server was set up incorrectly) you must redo the partitioning
and newfs-ing from scratch. 

The best installation procedure I know about is that of Debian. It's
compsed of many steps (like loading of kernel modules, configuring the
network, partitionig disks, making filesystems, getting the base system,
making the disk bootable..) which you can perform in any order, if basic
dependencies are satisfied. Of course, there is a predefined order for
"standard" installations which you can (but don't have to) follow if you
don't know what to do next.

Bye	Pavel