Cris David founder of www.moss07.org blogged about how to Installation SharePoint 2007 with best practice. He prepared a very organized document about how to install and configure SharePoint 2007. The document is supposed to be in 2 parts. He published his first part while a go. I highly recommend reading this document if you are new to SharePoint or want to put your hand on the best pratice and smooth way to deploy SharePoint 2007.
I supposed to post this on my SharePoint blog but it seems to be down.