delichon parent
I'm a long time Ubuntu user but not exactly a power user. When I installed i3wm I really liked it but was very handicapped by losing the rest of Gnome. I didn't understand how much "windows manager" encompasses. Suddenly just finding an app and opening it was pain. I ended up getting rid of it because of the constant challenges of replacing this and that from Gnome, but I still miss the tiling desktop. Is there anything out there for those us who need more hand holding?
it's been a few years since I've done this, but I used to have the same problem as you and I found that if I ran MATE but replaced the default WM in it, Marco, with i3, I got to have my tiling WM inside a proper DE. It was really great! If you are interested there are a few guides you can find if you search. I'm certainly not the first or only person to do this.
I only stopped using it because I eventually got a very large screen and tiling doesn't fit my flow anymore, so I just use KDE now lol