Noone could be bothered answering my post, maybe if I ask the same thing in a different way they will - or maybe they hate newbies

[Shaun Oliver]

*SNIP*
After I get going, I will want to use Gnome and Gnopericunus, but I'd
also like console access to.
*SNIP*

The thing is, Gnopernicus despite what anyone tells you is nowhere near 
prime time. it is still very much in alpha and there's a mountain of 
work to be done on it so at this stage it's really not as usable as we 
might want.
You however, will primarily have console access for which imho speakup 
is excellent.
and yes speakup wil work with the dec-talk express.
as for what distribution of linux to obtain, each of them have their 
merrits. However, go for the distribution you can get the most support 
for.
I won't go into details as to whether one is better than the other 
because I'm not after starting a flame war.
as I said go for the distribution you can get the best support for and 
stick with that until you're competent enough to branch out and try 
something else.
you might want something that's easy to install to start with so if I 
were to recomend a distro, I'd reccomend fedora.
hth

-- 
Shaun Oliver


"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."
email: shaun.oliver at optusnet.com.au
WEB: http://blindman.homelinux.org/~blindman/
IRC: irc.awesomechat.net:6666
IRCNICK: blindman