I took a look at the live session of MX-18 "Continuum" and compared it to my Debian Stretch Xfce installation.
MX-18 comes loaded with apps and tools, many of which I don't have (and don't need) in my Stretch installation, but also many that are nice to have handy. Also, I like that MX's live session (when run from a flash drive) offers options for persistence (root or home).
MX puts the xfce4-panel along the left side, oriented vertically; I do that, too, although my desktop setup is much different than the MX-18 default. Here's a shot from MX-18, with a few application windows open:
This one is from my Stretch Xfce setup; the open windows are xfce4-terminal, Double Commander (instead of Thunar), and Geany (instead of Featherpad):
In MX-18, clicking on the MX icon on the panel brings up the Whisker menu, while right-clicking on the desktop opens a more traditional Xfce menu. Lots of stuff in there!
Over in Debian, I use only the Applications menu, which I can bring up either by clicking on the Debian icon on the panel or by right-clicking on the empty desktop:
The empty default MX-18 desktop, and my empty Stretch Xfce desktop:
I'm quite happy with my Stretch Xfce installation, which is why I don't have MX installed. But I like having MX around on a flash drive for when I need a nice live session. The MX-18 "Continuum" release provides an excellent and very useful live session, right up there with the best live sessions I've ever seen. Wonderful little distro!
