Xecure
I am no expert with tiling window managers, as I have barely spend 10 minutes with one. Are there many differences between ratpoison and herbstluftwm that would make it impossible to transition to the later?
herbstluftwm comes with antiX 17.4, so you must have tested it already. If you find no way to get ratpoison to work, you could still manage with the herbstluftwm.
Hopefully you can find the error on the net and fix it. Alternatives I can’t give you.
Good luck.
antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.