I was booting the Gentoo Live DVD on my system and it was looking fine for a while till my screen went black. I searched the web for a solution but all the solutions required me to proceed with the installation and fix the video issues later. So I tried to get to a terminal.

I pressed [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Backspace], to restart the X Server but nothing happens. I Pressed [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F1] / [Alt] + [F1] to get a terminal, but nothing happens. [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] has no effect either. I press [Caps Lock] but there is no change in status. Pressing the Power Button on my laptop shuts down the computer after sometime, and that seems to be the only response I can get. There is nothing else I can do. I know my disc is fine because I managed to see the Live distribution on another computer. How would you advise me to proceed?

Thank you for your help.

I'm not sure, this helps but if I were in your shoes, I'd start from a Gentoo Minimal CD. Since you're going to do a lot of low level stuff anyway this shouldn't hurt too much.

I understand, but the thought of following all the instructions only to end up with a system that hangs in the end is too dismal. I may not have access to the internet in case I re-install, and I can't download large files at the moment. Thanks for the suggestion though. It was the first thing that came across my mind when I started reading the Handbook. I ran the disc on another computer, but I'm surprised at the fact a live disc doesn't have an installer. Had I known that in the first place, I would have started with the minimal disc but I can't do that at the moment.

EDIT: Alright, I decided to install Gentoo through the minimal disc, but I would like to know why the live disc doesn't come with an installer. It's a live disc!

It's a live disc because it contains a full OS. Gentoo is a low level system where you can and have to do things yourself. Writing a GUI for all use cases would be a daunting task.

I am not sure you understand what a live disk is.

A live disk let you boot an OS without installing it. Most live disks nowadays come with an installer, but they are NOT equivalent terms.

Second, and very important, the Gentoo installer is the user. It has always been that way. There have been many attempts to provide an installer in the past, and they all failed horribly. You definitely need the experience that the installation process gives you to maintain a Gentoo system, so you can consider it like an exam. If you are not prepared to read the handbook and follow it, then you would be having a very bad time using Gentoo anyway.

About the disk, you really don't need a Gentoo livecd to install Gentoo. Nothing from the disk goes into the final installation, so, just use whatever livecd works for you. It can be an Ubuntu livecd or an already installed distro, it doesn't matter. Just boot a linux OS, whatever it is, and start following the handbook.