For really fast booting systems, ubuntu is a nightmare. If a system boots slower ubuntu probably will work, but with vinux even on a fast booting system you boot it and wait and in time orca comes up talking. The thing with ubuntu as was explained over on the gnome-orca list is that several issues with ubuntu regarding use of root account with speech were fixed in vinux and those fixes went out pre-packaged. I do have an older version of ubuntu around which needed sighted assistance to get installed and talking because of that booting issue. There's no way I could recommend ubuntu as a first Linux for a blind person needing accessibility like orca but could recommend grml or vinux or debian though. What was a nice surprise with grml was that it installed on my laptop and runs, I don't know that the other flavors of Linux can do that especially not debian.
