[orca-list] orca questions

[Alex Hall <mehgcap gwi net>]

Hi all,
Here are the questions I promised in my previous post.
1.  I am starting out with Ubuntu 8.04.  Orca keeps randomly not 
speaking for several minutes.  It comes back, but I can hit 
alt-f2 and type "orca" to get speech back faster.  Why is this 
happening, and would going to an earlier version of Ubuntu 
resolve this?
2.  I am going to try a bunch of Linux versions tomorrow, most 
designed for thumb drives, including a few types of Puppy Linux, 
Breezy, Slax, and DSL, among others (sorry for the spelling, 
someone told me about them; I did not see the names myself).  Can 
I put Orca, or some sort of screen reader on any of these?
3.  This is not Orca-specific, and let me know if I should take 
this to another list, but is there a menu-based linux around? 
They all have GUIs, but I would like one closer to Windows 3.1 
setup (if I remember it correctly; I was very young when I used 
it).  Basically, all the applications are in one menu, which 
replaces the desktop, and each app either launches or brings up 
its own menu when you hit enter on it or press its letter to 
launch it.  Could I make something like this with the "build your 
own linux" project I found? (I know that name is wrong, I cannot 
remember the actual name off hand).
Thank you for any help!

Have a great day,
Alex