Gateway Solo 9300

[digyourownhole]

Hi,
My Linux experience is still small and learning.
I am currently running Mandrake 9.2 on my Gateway Solo 9300 (XL, i believe). It runs very smoothly. There are, however, reasons why I don't like Mandrake too much. I tried running Debian Sarge. I even compiled the kernel to 2.6.1, it worked, but not to my liking. (no sound still even though it had the right module etc. i got frustrated, with not too much time on my hands and switched back to Mandrake for the time being)
Gentoo, i know is much harder even to get going, but because of the great forums and enthousiasm of friends of mine I would really want to start running Gentoo.
MY QUESTION: is there someone out there who has a Gateway Solo 9300 (XL), PIII 650 Mhz, 8Mb Ati Rage Mobility P/M 2xAGP, ... etc. who has all the info i need to make the migration to Gentoo as smooth as possible? I would greatly appriciate it.
I intend to compile kernel 2.6.1 and KDE 3.2. Any Solo 9300 users out there with the info I need?
Many Thanks in advance.

D