I have been using fluxbox[1] for many years now, happily. It's a very barebones thing (in a good way) while also being highly configurable — customizable keyboard shortcuts, menus, scriptability, etc.
It is not a tiling WM. It also doesn't have desktop icons by default. I thought I would miss those, but have found I do not. There are options[2] to add that if you want it.
It also has no file manager. I use xfe[3] on the rare occasions I want that.
So, my setup is ~8 virtual desktops, with very minimal window decoration and task bar. Applications are easily launched via either custom shortcuts or the "right click" menu (though I use the keyboard to trigger it).
I also have a few keyboard shortcuts to position windows manually (eg: WinKey+NumPad key squashes the current window into a N,S,E,W -style location onscreen)
Standard X11 window management (eg: alt+drag to move a window) work as expected, etc.
It is not a tiling WM. It also doesn't have desktop icons by default. I thought I would miss those, but have found I do not. There are options[2] to add that if you want it.
It also has no file manager. I use xfe[3] on the rare occasions I want that.
So, my setup is ~8 virtual desktops, with very minimal window decoration and task bar. Applications are easily launched via either custom shortcuts or the "right click" menu (though I use the keyboard to trigger it).
I also have a few keyboard shortcuts to position windows manually (eg: WinKey+NumPad key squashes the current window into a N,S,E,W -style location onscreen)
Standard X11 window management (eg: alt+drag to move a window) work as expected, etc.
[1] http://fluxbox.org/
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/FluxboxIcon
[3] http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/