I've had good luck in the past with XFCE (in Xubuntu & OpenBSD) together with XMonad for this use case. Even now, where I don't use any of the panels and whatno

I've had good luck in the past with XFCE (in Xubuntu & OpenBSD) together with XMonad for this use case. Even now, where I don't use any of the panels and whatnot, I will occasionally fire up an XFCE control panel to do whatever it is that needs doing.