When comparing MX-17 vs Devuan GNU+Linux, the Slant community recommends MX-17 for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for Xfce?” MX-17 is ranked 5th while Devuan GNU+Linux is ranked 22nd.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Comes with a lot of goodies
Pro Friendly yet very configurable
Pro Lightning fast and stable
Pro Speed, encryption, drivers come with.
Pro Stability
It is stable like Debian.
Pro It's Debian
Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd.
Pro Excellent for normal people
It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners.
Pro No Systemd
Pro Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros
Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc.
Cons
Con No systemd
Con Difficult to install on non-free hardware
Unlike Debian, Devuan offers no unfree netinstall media, so if your system needs unfree drivers (e.g a laptop or a tablet), you'll have to download the Debian firmware on a separate USB.
Con No systemd
Con Fragmentation
Forked distributions like Devuan and Artix fragment the Linux community and hurt the original project. Debian users who do not want systemd should use Slackware or BSD instead.