gemini://gem.walkero.gr/ko-fi/Now-you-can-read-my-posts-on-Gemini.gmi

Yesterday, I decided to experiment a little bit and set up my personal Gemini blog server, where I will host posts from this Ko‑fi page and articles from my blog at walkero.gr. This will give me an extra way to reach users through this new protocol in a fast way. Also, this is a good opportunity to understand how the Gemini protocol works and if it is possible to setup a server.

But first of all let me tell you what Gemini is, based on the information I found. This is a new protocol that uses the concept of each page being a single file, which means that when you visit a page what you see comes from just one text file. No more external dependencies like JS, CSS or even images.

The content is written in simple text files that work like Markdown with much fewer tags to use and some differences. But if you used Markdown before is pretty easy to do the same with the gemtext files (.gmi, .gmni, .gemini). You still have a way to mark links, headers, quotes, preformatted text or lists and every paragraph needs to remain in the same line.

The Gemini protocol is something like a successor of Gopher with TLS security added. But it's not as big as the Web protocol. That's why it is lighter and faster.

There is a lot of software already available, like servers and clients, ready to be used. For the Amiga, there are two clients that can be used even on 68K Classic computers, the AmiGemini and IBrowse. AmiGemini supports other protocols, like gopher and spartan, but IBrowse supports HTTP(S). But both are pretty fast, although AmiGemini is lighter on Classic computers.

In the following days, I will add more and more of my older posts, and every new post will be available there as well. If you want to see how this new page works please visit gemini://gem.walkero.gr using one of the above clients. If you are on other systems.

More information about Gemini protocol can be found at gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/, where you can find a list of available clients for different operating systems.

To be honest with you, most of the websites are bloated with useless scripts and code, when the internet should be plain and fast, providing information and knowledge. Will Gemini-based websites be the solution for the future? I can't be sure, but for sure is something interesting that deserves to spend some time with it. Let me know what you think and if you find Gemini useful.

Now you can read my posts on Gemini