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Bombadillo

Home page

Installation

I tried building it from source, but the Makefile did not play nice with latest version of Go.

error obtaining VCS status: exit status 128

Instead, I just downloaded a prebuilt release.

mkdir bombadillo && cd bombadillo 
wget https://bombadillo.colorfield.space/binaries/bombadillo-2.3.3_linux_arm.zip
sudo apt-get install unzip
unzip bombadillo-2.3.3_linux_arm.zip

Review

Bombadillo is a gopher client that recently added support for Gemini. This becomes apparent when trying to browse to a domain that is available on Gemini but not Gopher, because you're presented with a minimally helpful error message:

dial tcp 52.25.217.209:70: connect: connection refused

It was not immediately obvious to me how to use this client. It's not possible to access help by pressing "?" or "h". It takes some time to learn that help is accessed by pressing typing [Esc]:help. The man page (man bombadillo) is essential reading here. Here are a few key commands:

- [U]p

- [B]ookmarks sidebar

- [R]eload

- [/]search

After learning that Bombadillo is loosely based on vim, some things start to make more sense. Pressing space to enter "line mode" opens up a world of options. It works as an address bar when entering a bare URL, but again, make sure to include the gemini:// protocol prefix. Then I tried bookmarking my own homepage using a line command, but forgot the gemini:// prefix yet again.

Once you have ascended the steep learning curve of bombadillo, it becomes powerful and terse, much like vim. You might like Bombadillo if you have a favourite gopher site or you're a die-hard vim user, but otherwise you might be better off with some other client.

Nic's Rating: 3/5 stars ★★★☆☆

Review date: 2022-06-14