>     It sounds to me like you are altering the installation directory. When
> it comes up with asking for an install directory with the default of
> [/usr/INSTALL]:, don't change that! /XXXX/INSTALL is where sysinst actually
> downloads the install sets for later extraction. It should not be writing

Thank you everyone who has responded along similar lines, but this isn't the 
problem.  As I should have said the first time, I'm using NFS off my linux 
server, the same one doing tftp et. al.  I never even get asked this question. 
 I honestly think that the binary is broken and if I have time this weekend 
(and if it isn't too hairy) I'll look through the source to see what the 
problem is.  The 1.4.2 sysinst and boot binary from 1.4.2 work fine over NFS; 
1.4.3 doesn't.
Thanks,
John