Sorry to hijack, but what is the minimum set of desktop environment utilities that need to be running for everything to run fine (on Linux)? I run xmonad via s

Sorry to hijack, but what is the minimum set of desktop environment utilities that need to be running for everything to run fine (on Linux)? I run xmonad via startx, but some basic stuff like EasyEffects (and possibly other stuff based on GTK4) crash. Any offhand insight?