I tried the latest Mint (18.2) with the XFCE desktop and it ran well enough but the build doesn't include Samba, which is needed to network with Windows. Installing Samba and system-config-samba wasn't too hard but they didn't get on with the version of smb.conf that came with them. Manjaro + XFCE looked tidy enough but kept claiming it had 135 updates which it refused to install so in the end I went to Peppermint 8, which comes with Samba as part of the build. LibreOffice and FireFox came from wherever Peppermint gets it from and system-config-samba let me set up shares. It wasn't the easiest of jobs to get it all working, involving me in guessing my way through Linux keyrings, which I assume are some form of security, but by dint of using the same password and username for everything it does now work although please don't ask me to tell you how.