But to get Gentoo running, all you need to do is boot up the LiveCD, and run the installer, where you choose a few options, and programs to pre-install, and it will do what it's meant to do..
Then, boot it up from where you installed it, and it includes Portage, which automatically installs most programs for you. For example, you can install Firefox by simply going:
emerge -av firefox
And it will ask you if you want to download the specific amount, and if you choose yes, it will download it, then compile it for you, as you sit back, and continue doing what you were doing. Gentoo is the first distro I have properly installed to Hard Disk, and it's easy to use and understand.