Accessible Distros for a beginner?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

I confess I have a bias towards the command-line, and did most things
from a terminal emulator prior to going blind. Even if running a full
desktop environment with any regularity was something I was interested
in doing, I would hate a system that boots directly to a desktop
environment. Only reason I even bother with Firefox and orca is
because web browsing is the one everyday task I've yet to find an
agreeable text-only solution for.

Admittedly, if you just want a Windows-like experience minus
Microsoft's shenanigans, a distro that boots directly into Gnome or
Mate with Orca autolaunching might be best, and perhaps there are
better ways for a blind user to get started learning the command line
than Adriane's way of doing things, I really don't know, I had already
been using Linux full-time for 6 years when I went blind, having cutt
my teeth on the earliest versions of Ubuntu and having jumped ship to
vanilla Debian before they ever experimented with doing their own
desktop environment.

All I know is that one of the last Adriane CDs was the distro that
restored my ability to use a computer independantly after my vision
got too bad for a high contrast theme and large fonts to help in
Debian LXDE, I much prefer the way SBL does screen review to how
espeakup does it, and I like being able to launch the only graphical
application I use with any regularity without the need of launching a
full desktop. My way of doing things probably isn't for everyone, but
if sharing my experiences helps even one person, than I think it was
worth the effort to type up.

-Jeffery