Which linux distro??

[Mirabella, Mathew J]

ok folks.  I need to pose a question to you all that I have already asked before, and the responses some time ago suggested that redhat may be the best way to go... things may have changed since folks on the speakup list are talking about the lack of built in speakup support with new versions of redhat.
So.  the question is... for a blind person, new to linux wanting to have a speech based system with emacspeak and speakup and wanting to start taking advantage of newer stuff with gnome etc. and also wanting good support of new hardware... which linux distro would people recommend.
I am hearing that slackware or debian or redhat are the three that most people seem to use, with redhat looking a bit shakey lately.  slackware 9 seems to have the newest gnome stuff...???
or maybe people think that redhat 7.3 with a speakup kernel is the best way to go?
please give me your thoughts.