[orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility

[Keith Hinton <keithint1234 gmail com>]

Hi folks,
it has been a very long while since I have posted to the Orca mailing list.
In fact, more than a year.
I was writing in to find out from people who know what they are
talking about what the current state of Linux accessibility is with
Orca, etc.
I was wondering how the major Linux distributions like Fedora, Open
Sues, etc are doing with Orca, Speech Dispatcher, and generally over
all how is Linux these days?
I have avoided Linux for a long while because I have a friend who
believes  actually, who is utterly convinced that linux accessibility
is going backwards.
But I don't honestly know for sure if that is so.
So, I naturally question him and would like to know from those of you
out their who are involved in Linux accessibility generally how do you
think Linux is?
WouldI be able to run something under Gnome these days like Virtual Box?
How does Linux perform with the latest and greatest CPUs, multi core
SMP hardware and such from your experiences>?
My friend says to me that most of you are using old clunky outdated
hardware which is why you don't get Speech Dispatcher or Orca
subsystem crashes, etc.
But I haven't used Linux in so long that I figure the time is now to
actually just come out and ask and see what responses I get.
Obviously, I know that everybody will have their own distribution prefferences.
But I'm not here to start a war on Ubuntu, vs Fadora, etc.
I am trying aside from an OS specific fight to figure out what the
current honest state of Linux accessibility is.
Is it actually falling back and going backwards and thus dying out?
I don't know.
Is it worth grabbing something like the latest oh, I don't know, Open
Suse, Fadora or similar and giving Orca a spin?

So I was hopeing some of you out their might have a better idea.
Thanks!

All the best,
Keith