If you want to break out of the windows mold, tiling windows managers are where its at. You’ve already explored that route with i3, and there are other alternatives, but they all have a bit of a learning curve unfortunately. hyprland might be worth a try. I’ve only dabbled but I did remember it being a bit more beginner friendly than i3. But be prepared to be confused, read a bunch of forum posts and edit config files for a bit.
If you want to break out of the windows mold, tiling windows managers are where its at. You’ve already explored that route with i3, and there are other alternatives, but they all have a bit of a learning curve unfortunately. hyprland might be worth a try. I’ve only dabbled but I did remember it being a bit more beginner friendly than i3. But be prepared to be confused, read a bunch of forum posts and edit config files for a bit.