Hii, I have been using Linux mint cinnamon for two months but it still hangs on my laptop(Dell Vostro 1015).
My laptop specs are :-
Intel core duo processor
2gb ram
I am switching to Manjaro Xfce today. As I have read that, earlier Manjaro breaks a lot but now it has become fine.
Example- Installing Gimp from Gui doesn’t install extra packages for it, but installing Gimp from cli also ask for additional packages.
As today I am installing Manjaro Xfce today, so I will be installing new softwares too, so what is the best way to do that and keep my OS as fast as new.
If your question is about what you need to do as maintenance for the system here is a really nice guide from the Manjaro wiki:
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/System_Maintenance
Other things you can do is installing the stable iso and Installing XFCE, as you said you would do, is a good decision for your system, it uses around 700mb of ram so is nice on low memory systems like yours.
When a new update is released you should wait a day or two and read the comments in the release thread before updating, so you know what issues other people found and how you can resolve them if you have a problem with your system.
Use Timeshift to create snaps of your system in case an update (or yourself) brake it, you can always come back and restore the system to a date when it was working fine.