From what I've discerned most of the RockPro64 images either will work or are the basis for future images of the PBP. You can find them here: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/ROCKPr...re_Release
DietPi is a popular lightweight distro, but I'd imagine most are already pretty lightweight given the platform. You can also check out Manjaro's image for the RockPro64, which offers a minimal variant: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-arm-...ased/99031
I'm sure with a little bit of work you could get i3 going on it, it should already be in the manjaro-arm repo, as it's provided with images for other boards. It seems there's also a bug in the 5.2 kernel that causes an increased boot time for these boards, but as mentioned on the post, upgrading to 5.3 should resolve it, or this may not even be a problem since you're using a VM.
DietPi is a popular lightweight distro, but I'd imagine most are already pretty lightweight given the platform. You can also check out Manjaro's image for the RockPro64, which offers a minimal variant: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-arm-...ased/99031
I'm sure with a little bit of work you could get i3 going on it, it should already be in the manjaro-arm repo, as it's provided with images for other boards. It seems there's also a bug in the 5.2 kernel that causes an increased boot time for these boards, but as mentioned on the post, upgrading to 5.3 should resolve it, or this may not even be a problem since you're using a VM.