A DE/WM/"GUI" for low-res screens?

[Anna Vahtera]

Hello! I've just recently gotten a few (okay, several. I might have a problem here.) small single-board computers and I'm thoroughly in love with them. I also purchased a few small LCDs so I could make small independent thing that wouldn't require a huge display - perhaps even portable ones.

 

While I do enjoy using the terminal for practically anything (give me lynx, rtv, byobu and the likes and I'm happy), there are certain advantages in a graphical user interface. But let's face it, the default UIs with modern window managers are... not exactly designed for small, low-res screens. With a 800x480 screen it's plausible to use just a normal WM and be rather fine with it. 

 

But let's take the more common 3.2" and 3.5" screens that have either 320x240 or in my case 480x320 resolution.

Trying to navigate and use a computer with a 480x320 resolution with a normal  window manager is not exactly the most joyous activity in the world. I can drive mine at 720x480 and that is almost usable with LXDE, but I'd prefer to run it at 480x320 because text is better at that res.

 

So, anyone got any suggestions? 

Requirements are that it runs on ARM (of course) and is lightweight, preferably. Bonus points for being designed for touch screens (as most of the screens do have touch), but is not necessary (I don't have touch drivers installed on most of them, I prefer mouse + keyboard). But I admit having the advantage of being designed for touch use would be nice.

[JMCC]

If you want plain window managers with no other gadget or bar on the screen, there are quite a few of them: Openbox, Fluxbox or JWM are among the most popular. But they won't make a big difference with LXDE or Xfce in terms of usability in low-res, since in these you can just hide the panel/bar and you will have the full screen available too.

 

What will really matter IMO is that you set low DPI, set a small font, and choose a compact widget theme (for GTK and Qt). And minimalistic window decorations, in case you use them (some window managers don't even use window decorations, see here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/window_manager ).