comparison of different distros

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
With the news of ubuntu dropping speakup in gutsy, I am thinking of
changing to another distro where I will have speakup for the text
console. I am just wondering what is the advantages of the different
distros (what is the good points and bad points to each one). I have
previously used slackware, but found sometimes compiling software could
be a problem due to the continuation of using a 2.4 kernel and some of
the libs. I have also used gentoo which seemed to work well except for
all configuration was left to be done by hand and if not careful while
doing an update you may find the system fails because of a change in the
configuration options. How does debian compare? Also could anyone point
me in the direction of a comparison of the different distros.

From
Michael Whapples