I put together a guide to help beginners go from registering a domain name up through installing Drupall and some basic Drupal configuration. If you don't want to use Drupall you can still use the guide and then when it gets to the part about installing a script you can choose a different one. The guide is new and I'm working the kinks out but if you want to try it, I will walk you through it if you have any trouble
http://webdevHOWTO.com
Happy Developing!