Some of the packages I added post-install:
doublecmd-gtk geany nomacs audacious udiskie ntp galculator lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings mc evince geeqie gparted localepurge firmware-linux-free firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-realtek neofetch inxi orage
I'm using the following lines in my /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
A Debian "network install" (see: https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/) gives me a nice starting point for when I want to kinda build my own system from the ground up, and with Xfce I have a lot of options and flexibility for setting up the desktop to suit my tastes. I bring in a handful of apps that I prefer to use instead of some of the Xfce defaults -- Double Commander instead of Thunar, Geany instead of Mousepad, and Nomacs instead of Ristretto, for example.
The end result is a near-perfect setup, in my opinion.
There had been some concern that Synaptic would be left out of Debian Buster. I don't really use Synaptic anymore as I prefer to do my package management from the command line, but I found that Synaptic came in as part of the default installation. Also, Synaptic now shows up in the Buster repos when I search for it at the Debian Packages site. Good news for many users.
The Debian project's home page: https://www.debian.org/
