I only want a tiling window manager, a couple of browsers, Sublime Text 3, and access to the internet.
My personal opinion is that i3 rocks, and and that I don't need all of Ubuntu or Xubuntu. I don't even need Rhythmbox or Thunar. Just give me the bare bones of a modern Linux upon which I can install i3 and add just the few things I need.
I'm figuring how to install an awesome WM with MATE, lately. https://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Quickly_Setting_up_Awesome... http://askubuntu.com/questions/616520/how-do-i-set-up-awesom...
What you're describing was pretty much my Archlinux setup btw. It was just more convinient for me to build it from an archlinux than a regular ubuntu. You could with an ubuntu though, it'd just be a lot more work I feel like.
EDIT: turns out I'm pretty much explaining you what you already know.... I'll leave my comment up anyway, maybe it'll help someone else.
> My personal opinion is that i3 rocks, and and that I don't need all of Ubuntu or Xubuntu
I'm on LinuxMint.
sudo apt-get install i3; xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client0_Command -t string -s "i3wm" -t string -s "--replace" -a # logout, login
The problem was then that the Alt key wasn't being recognized, possibly due to VirtualBox.