[jonfw]

I spent a couple of years running an extremely minimal arch I3 install. It was fantastic doing things within my normal workflow, but when you have to introduce new tools, new network requirements, etc. it takes a fairly significant amount of effort. For instance- connecting to my university's wifi took hours and required hacking up a python script that wasn't compatible with my system.

I think a lot of the fight against 'bloat' is largely ideological and not really rooted in practicality, but it definitely makes for a good learning experience

[zdragnar]

I recently switched to KDE, Which lets you use i3 as the window manager. You still get KDE's bar and applets like the network manager and such. Not nearly as minimal as the arch setup I had before, and takes a depressing amount of time to log in and out in comparison, but so far is otherwise worth it for me.