> which distributions come with speakup already included I'm not sure, but try googling the distribution name followed by speakup and you'll probably find info. If you want something that is easy to get started with, and doesn't require completely reinstalling your OS software (repartitioning and changing bootloaders etc), I agree that zipspeak is a good way. You can simply unzip the speakup distribution on an existing windows FAT file system, and run the linux.bat file to start linux. > what then tends to make a distribution different The differences revolve around installation procedures, configuration management, package management, and kernel details (some use modified kernels, some use the standard linus kernel from www.kernel.org). My personal preference is to always use the standard kernel.org kernels. > applications included Suse, Redhat, and Debian have tons of binary compiled software. Others have less, but most linux software can be built from source easily. A good bulk of the prebuilt software is GUI anyways, and many of the interesting text and command line tools need to be built from source. Availablility of prebuilt packages never determines my preference, but I have lots of experience, so it may be important to others. > all Linux programs work in Linux distributions, no matter which. The safest way to ensure that an application will work on your system is to build it from source. Most of the software includes utilities that check your system to determine its details, and configures the build accordingly. The assumption that all linux programs work on all distributions is false. Its possible to write software that takes advantage of distribution specific things. I used redhat in the 5.x days, and liked it a lot, but then I fell in love withs slackware when I saw the simplicity of its web site. http://www.slackware.com/ I've been using slackware for many years with very good results. People keep saying its a "hacker" distribution, I don't buy that. I consider it a "less filling tastes great" distribution <grin>. Lately I'm having fun building my own distros from source, but that's a whole other world. Here's what I think, don't waste too much time deciding which is right for you. Pick on and dive in. Learn what you can. Then try something else, see how it compares. They are not radically different anyways. Most of the important software is the same on all of them. -- Doug
