Unfortunately, there are no perfect instructions for installing on every server. Zenphoto does try to simplify it as much as possible; it should be as simple as running `setup.php`, fixing any errors, and following through the script. Sometimes there are errors, and those errors are usually related to the server, so it's nearly impossible to give troubleshooting to every single possible problem a user might encounter.
In your case, you're encountering a blank page. Chances are that you will find an error in your server's error logs. You should locate those logs and relay the error to us; otherwise, we would only be guessing at what the problem could be.
Also, in most cases, decent FTP clients will do fine with auto-detect. However, if you want to be sure, all Zenphoto's files are ASCII-based (without looking at SVN, I'm 99% sure there are no pre-compiled binaries), so you should be able to upload as ASCII if necessary.