The Xfce version of Mint gave similar results to the Mate one. The main programs provided were the same, as was their performance: good, save for Gnome-mplayer. Despite the installer downloading language packs (without asking), LibreOffice had only an American dictionary, but an English one was not too difficult to install with Synaptic.

The Xfce desktop was standard, apart from Mint’s strange custom of not putting a pager on the panel. The panel now has two modes if you move it to the side: the traditional, and an LXDE-like one called the desk-bar mode. It was nice to see that Thunar now has the ‘open as root’ option for directories and files. As usual with Mint, this is Xfce for those who like it: it’s not much smaller than Mate, although the 32-bit would run perfectly in 512MB.

With the Mate version, encrypting /home had led to my having to use startx at re-boots. Now there’s only an error message which goes away if you ignore it.

For the average user, this is probably the best Xfce distro. Salix may be a little more stable, but it’s a little less easy. Saline has better documentation, but doesn’t provide easy encryption.

The Xfce distribution was easy to install, looks great with lots of software pre-installed. Updates are required.

However, I cannot use this distribution and go back to Linux 2011 for following reasons:

* HDMI output is required at 800x600 for our cash-register, which we sell to chinese restaurants. I need extra lines in .xprofile, else this one does not start correct:
xrandr -- mode add
xrandr -- use mode
I am using a DE2700 industrial PC with HDMI output.

Because of this startup-code, there is a dirty glitch in the video.

During installation of Linux the touch screen works very well, even without drivers installed. But after installation there is no touch anymore. The eGalax driver cannot detect the touch screen. Even after fixing udev rules and make the device visible. Lot's of tries in xorg.conf also didn't help.

For my kids, they have Linux 13 and love it!!