Like OP, I switched to a Dell XPS from Mac. First with the pre-installed Ubuntu, then Xfce + Debian and now Debian + i3. It comes with headaches. Ubuntu (16)'s

Like OP, I switched to a Dell XPS from Mac. First with the pre-installed Ubuntu, then Xfce + Debian and now Debian + i3. It comes with headaches. Ubuntu (16)'s window handling was sometimes buggy for me. Xfce was fast and worked very well, but I wanted something with better multi-monitor support and even more minimalistic. i3 fits that bill nicely. I would not want to go back to Windows, Mac or Ubuntu for that matter, because they all force their agenda on you. (Ads in my start menu? No thanks. iTunes / Garage Band / many other apps I really don't want / "Sign into your Apple account"? Also, no thanks.) Plus, like OP, the shell on Linux is best when the server OS is the same as on the dev machine. It's not perfect, but I really wouldn't want anything else anymore.