Package Details: w3m-rkta-git 0.5.5.r2.g5238aed-2

Git Clone URL: https://aur.archlinux.org/w3m-rkta-git.git (read-only, click to copy)
Package Base: w3m-rkta-git
Description: Rene Kita's fork of the text-based web browser/pager w3m with gemini support (development version)
Upstream URL: https://git.sr.ht/~rkta/w3m
Keywords: browser cli ftp gemini gopher nntp pager rkta webbrowser www
Licenses: LicenseRef-W3M
Conflicts: w3m
Provides: w3m
Submitter: kseistrup
Maintainer: kseistrup
Last Packager: kseistrup
Votes: 3
Popularity: 0.000459
First Submitted: 2024-12-31 20:34 (UTC)
Last Updated: 2025-08-24 16:34 (UTC)

Required by (75)

Sources (1)

Latest Comments

m040601 commented on 2026-08-06 03:04 (UTC) (edited on 2026-08-06 03:06 (UTC) by m040601) 

... the pkgdesc already has “w3m with gemini support” — is that not enough?

Oops... yes it is fine. Even the "Keywords" are excelent. Sorry, I got confused and mixed up with other comment threads and missed that.

kseistrup commented on 2026-08-05 15:45 (UTC)

@m040601, the pkgdesc already has “w3m with gemini support” — is that not enough?

m040601 commented on 2026-08-05 14:15 (UTC) (edited on 2026-08-05 14:32 (UTC) by m040601) 

... extra/w3m does not seem to support the Gemini protocol

You are correct. I forgot to mention this.

... Can you confirm this (try e.g. w3m gemini://geminiprotocol.net/)?

It displays the message "Unknown URI: gemini://geminiprotocol.net/"

rkta, has that "gemini" support in a separate branch on the repo. I had already tested many months ago. Works like a charm. W3m is very easy and fast to build "by hand". I already use telescope for gemini, so I dont miss it enabled in w3m. And I want to stay away from the AUR has much as possible nowadays.

I have this on my personal w3m siteconf file,

url "gemini://"
substitute_url "https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/"

When I open a "gemini://" url it just redirects you to the portal.mozz.us GEMINI/HTML proxy translator, https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/geminiprotocol.net

Or you could also tell w3m spawn another program to open gemini:// urls .

I dont know why rkta doesnt make gemini support available in the default w3m release yet. Maybe he wants to polish it more ?

Maybe you'll want to add "with gemini support enabled" to your "w3m-git" PKBUILD "Description" to make it crystal clear for everyone.

Anyway, chawan, https://chawan.net, also an official Arch package, has gemini enabled by default. And even, SFTP (using libssh2), FTP, Gopher, Finger, Spartan. Extensible by users.

Fabulous solid thing written in Nim language by bptato a w3m collaborator and very similar to w3m.

kseistrup commented on 2026-08-01 13:53 (UTC)

@m040601 However, extra/w3m does not seem to support the Gemini protocol. Can you confirm this (try e.g. w3m gemini://geminiprotocol.net/)?

If that is so, then this repo in effect provides a w3m built from the git tip and with added Gemini suport.

If not, this is essentially a w3m-git package.

m040601 commented on 2026-07-31 21:00 (UTC) (edited on 2026-07-31 21:03 (UTC) by m040601)

Just an update if someone missed it.

The official Arch "w3m" has switched to Rene Kita, https://git.sr.ht/~rkta/w3m in december 2025.

  2025-12-07 13:25  upgpkg: 0.5.5-1: Switch to actively maintained fork

kseistrup commented on 2025-02-16 20:40 (UTC)

Thanks, those are good comments both for me and other users.

m040601 commented on 2025-02-16 20:21 (UTC)

Another tip for for text browser fans is chawan, https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chawan-git, https://git.sr.ht/~bptato/chawan

For someone already familiar with w3m very easy to use. It's like w3m supercharged with css/some javascript support. Bptato is also a w3m long time contributor.

I personally dont need css/javascript but find it very interesting, I can confirm that it compiles and installs fast and fine in Archlinux.

I didnt use the PKGBUILD. I compiled/installed it by hand as another user. See my previous comment for "w3m-rkta-git". Thats because some of chawan path "expectations" and config files are similar to w3m. User interface almost the same. And I dont want to risk mixing them or forgetting which one I am using.

m040601 commented on 2025-02-16 19:55 (UTC) 

... call the binary for w3m-rkta and then emit a message at install  ...
... create an alias. ...

Hmmm ... too much mess. Just leave it as it is . You did the PKGBUILD perfect as it should be.

I found one way. See my edit in the previous comment.

kseistrup commented on 2025-02-16 19:48 (UTC)

@m040601

Thanks for your comment, I get where you're at.

Personally, I have installed this package instead of the “real” w3m, so I don't have the same problem as you do.

First I thought we could call the binary for w3m-rkta and then emit a message at install/update time that the name is so and so and that people can create an alias. But it's not just the binaries that clash, the manual pages and more also collide.

ArchLinux needs something like Debian's “alternatives”.

I'm not sure how to solve this dilemma. If you or somebode else can think of a solution, please let me know.

m040601 commented on 2025-02-16 17:35 (UTC) (edited on 2025-02-16 20:10 (UTC) by m040601)

Hi @kseistrup. Thanks for this PKGBUILD. Nice to see other Archlinux users with interest in w3m.

I'm a long time power user of w3m. On my system I am (still) using the official arch w3m package that pulls from debian/github.

I've been following very closely what rkta is doing on sr.ht . And waiting for it to "stabilize", to start using it as my default w3m.

In the mean time I also want to test rkta-w3m. But I dont want to remove the official "w3m" or mess with my system or personal configuration. 

 Conflicts:  w3m
 Provides:   w3m

That above guards well against that. You can have one or the other. But not both. You have to either choose "w3m" or "w3m-rkta-git"

My question is:

I would like to have both "rkta-w3m" and the official "w3m" completely isolated in my system. Used by two differennt system users.

Do you have any idea or suggestion how can I accomplish that goal in Arch ?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: i found one possible way.

This does not depend on PGKBUILDs, Archlinux, or pacman or yay etc. It's the classical

./configure
make
make install

Which I am very unfamiliar with ...

I decided to go like this.

First create another user

sudo useradd -m w3mkrtaguy
sudo passwd w3mkrtaguy

From now on login as "w3mrktaguy"

mkdir -p ~/Repos
mkdir -p ~/Localstuff
cd Repos
git clone https://git.sr.ht/~rkta/w3m

Now the important stuff to guarantee w3m gets compilled and properly installed only for this user "w3mrktaguy"

cd ~/Repos/w3
./configure --prefix=/home/w3mrktaguy/Localstuff/
make
make install

So everything should land nicely in that "Localstuff" dir,

/home/w3mrktaguy/Localstuff

├── bin
│   ├── w3m
│   └── w3mman
├── libexec
│   └── w3m
└── share
    ├── locale
    ├── man
    └── w3m

You can start w3m by, ./Localstuff/bin/w3m . Nothing else is needed. You can configure all your text files inside ~/.w3m and w3m should always find all the necessary "libs" and "cgis" etc.

Conclusion.

At first I was a bit scared. I'm a power command line Arch user. But I'm not familiar with the classic way of installing/compiling. Always get confused with "flags" and "VARS" and "-D" and make/configure options.

But it goes very well. I thought it would take "hours" to compile. Ahhaha. It is only one minute or so !!! And then you have a freshly baked 25 year old browser out of the oven.

And above all, perfect isolation. There is no way I can confuse my daily use of w3m with this one. I spent tooooooooo much time with w3m config files to risk messing it up.