Wikipedia in your pocket

aka. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, v1.0 :)

This Instructable will set out how to construct what I believe to be a unique implementation of Wikipedia in an offline, portable device. It involves installing a stripped-down distribution of Linux on a Psion 5mx handheld, and installing a static HTML version of Wikipedia for use with one of two browsers. Most importantly, you do not have to be a Linux wizard to achieve this. I will assume a basic familiarity with computers, but you do not need experience with the intricacies of filing systems, compiling source code and the stuff that traditionally puts people off using Linux. Following the steps in this Instructable should let you create your own HHGTTG- I will explain what I am doing but also try to give as explicit instructions as possible.

(For this reason, seasoned linux hackers can take the "skip this step" instructions provided at the top of the steps involving partitioning the CF card and unpacking archives to it)

Also, I apologise deeply for how dry this Instructable is. I have tried hard to make the bulk of it readable without skimping on detail or being overly prolix, but explaining how to partition a removable volume and unpack .tgz archives to it is difficult to make amusing. Sorry.

Lastly, but by no means least, I could not have done this without the efforts of:

• the people who ported Linux to the ARM,
• the OpenPsion (née PsiLinux) community for porting Linux to the Psion,
• Adrian Wells for Kludged Linux, and of course
• all the good folks at Wikipedia.

My hack pales into insignificance compared to any of these achievements. (This lengthy grovel is mostly lest anyone accuse me of taking credit for the work of others. I emailed Adrian on the 22-04-2008 to ask if he objected to me reproducing his works here, but had no response)

Step 1: Required materials

The major sticking point for this Instructable is that you require a working Psion 5mx. These are comparatively rare, but by no means unobtainable- a quick ebay search revealed 16 on the first page of a search for "psion 5mx". They are not cheap, usually running to around £70, but you may well find one for less, or even free if a friend has one they no longer use.
The other parts can be easily obtained more cheaply- I spent about £15 for all the parts except for the Psion, which was a gift.

You will need: (with approximate cost)

- A working Psion 5mx PDA. Around £70 (ebay), or possibly free if you search enough attics.
- A Compactflash card of at least 1GB- I recommend a 4GB card. £11 (ebay)
- A Compactflash card adapter for your PC, either USB or PCMCIA. £4 (ebay)
- A PC running Linux. If you don't have it installed, I would suggest burning a live CD or making a bootable USB drive for a distribution such as Puppy.
- The archives with which to install Kludged Linux on your Psion. These may be found at Adrian's site here, at the bottom of the page under "download". If his site should disappear, let me know and I will provide my copies for download
- Static HTML dump of Wikipedia.
Text-only dump from 2003 (large file download)
CD distribution of 4,500 good articles with thumbnail images (warning, 750MB file download)
There is a static dump of the entire English language Wikipedia as of June 2008 here: http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-06/en/
- A flask of weak lemon drink

Comments

[kbhasi]

Can I use a old windows ce palmtop instead?

[PKM]

Yep, as long as it has some form of web browser and sufficient storage for the ridiculously big HTML (several gigabytes, you'll need a big flash card), any portable computing device should work.

[flio191]

Why is the Z and the Y switched on that device? Just wondering

[PKM]

Well spotted- the photo for step 11 was "borrowed" from WIkipedia and it's actually a German Psion, in Germany they use the QWERTZ keyboard. I guess Z is a much more common letter in German so they moved it more to the middle of the keyboard.

[Electronics Man]

wow this is like a mini laptop i want one

[Super_Nerd]

About the umm uh oh yeah!
false pixelated metaphysical computer plane and cannot be touched and tasted and felt and smelt and seen

you can feel it... You just need to hook up the data output to a high voltage source and touch the high voltage data

LOL

[JoshuaZimmerman]

Quite a cool instructable for its time. Too bad modern smart phones have killed it. Sadness.

[interfazhumana]

Wow! A working psion :) ! I remember when I was just a kid and dreamed about having one (no idea what for... but they were just wonderful theese days), nice project, congrats!
PD: Sorry for my english

[unanonymous]

any idea how to do this to a Palm Tungsten E?(by the way been designing ideas for a hitchhiker's guide, and ive got an idea but idon't think it'll work).

[dbh937]

could this work on something other than a psion? I looked on ebay, and the cheapest one was 120 bucks.

[possum888]

I've just bought a Psion 5mx Pro and I'm going to try it. The touchscreen doesn't work, and everything is in German, but I've found an English ROM and as soon as I can get my hands on a CF card thats bigger than the included 15MB I'll try it!

[Saturn V]

Is there something other than the Psion 5mx that I can do this with?  Perferably somthing that doesn't cost a hundred USD?

[Saturn V]

As soon as I build this, I'm going to look up 42 on Wikipedia.
I did that one day on my computer, and somehow I got from 42 to Stargate Atlantis.  So weird.

[itsthatsguy]

Awsome project, i am going to make one using well, more modern tech. is there a way i can build a search function into the program? not very linux-y

[PKM]

A search function could be difficult.  I suspect Wikipedia indexes their pages to make fast search possible, and they are operating on the article database- this stores the actual HTML.  You could do a text search over the HTML, but that would be non-contextual and take forever on the Psion's processor.  I have no idea how long (because I broke my Psion :$) but consider there are gigabytes of HTML in thousands of files- that would take an appreciable time on a desktop PC, never mind a decade-old palmtop.  There might be a way to index the pages and search against that, but if there is I'm not familiar with it.

Alternatively, you could buy one of these, which my boss emailed me this morning under the heading "Contact your lawyer" :)

[hintss]

no, it stores the wikicode, which is parsed on demand by mediawiki

[itsthatsguy]

Thanks for the help, an indexer would be the way to go, "contact your lawyer" haha, although i am much more of the - why buy it... when you can make it - type.

[Quest for Questions]

hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy roooocks !!! 'read all 6 books in 2 months.

[erik_mccray]

Can this be done with the cd3wd stuff to?

[tomm0505]

Sound like a new toy... Wikipedia in my pocket...

[ElvenChild]

do this with instructables and I would totally go for it because I use Instructables way more than wikipedia

[ElvenChild]

hi

[technoguy94]

Is it possible to do this if you know absolutely NOTHING about Linux? Also, I once heard about a phone (the XPphone) that is actually a pocket PC (but I haven't found a place to buy one yet...) Could I use that?

[PKM]

Erm.. yes, if you followed the "type this here" instructions to the letter, if you're at least capable of booting Linux on your PC, but the tiniest difference would probably break the process. A little linux know-how is quite useful in case, for instance, your drive letters end up different. It should be easy to do with a phone running Windows XP Embedded.

As I've tried to make clear in the instructions, the Psion makes it difficult- all you really need is a device with lots of flash storage and a browser. Any smartphone could do it with a large enough flash card.

Incidentally, it could be because the website is badly written but the XPphone doesn't look very convincing to me. If you are going to buy a smartphone I'd recommend you have a play with as many different models as you can, and preferably try several of the major OSes- iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Nokia are all worth consideration.

[Mr Williams]

 do you know of any devices with color or touch screens that can do this?

[zack247]

perhaps a palm pilot? i havent googled or anything but it may be possible

[Mr Williams]

 You know what would be cool...write and iPad app that has this format...

[zack247]

as cool as that would be, dont remind me of the ipad. ipods are okay, but since i am a mac hater (no offense to those who like macs) i say down with the giant ipod. aka the ipad. but i think the ipad uses some new sort of code only apple knows... thatd be something to google

[Saturn V]

I HATE Macs, but the only reason I'd get an ipad is because of the constellation thing. I'm an astronamy nut, but my hate for Apple outweighs my love for astronomy.

[Mr Williams]

no i don't like macs either but its a cool concept

[Pie Ninja]

An apple product being useful? Such a thing is impossible.

[dombeef]

Really? The ipad is useful for a pianist who has sheet music on their ipad And for cats to play with virtual fish...

[zack247]

a cat playing with a ipad... can anyone else see the problem?

[dombeef]

Yeah but the pianist who has sheet music on their ipad?

[red-king]

I'm sure there are lots of other uses as well... potential uses anyway.

[zack247]

yeah, like a shiny paperweight

[Saturn V]

A very shiny, very expensive, worthless, paperweight. 

[zack247]

finally! someone else who sees the ipad as the worthless piece of s*** it really is!

[dombeef]

It is just advertised as a better tool than it really is, but is is a good portable computer in some terms

[zack247]

some terms? the only good thing about it is that you can listen to music on it. otherwise, (no mean to offend anyone) its a overrated, overpriced, shiny reflective paperweight.

[freakyqwerty]

I'm pretty sure that there would be a way to install linux on it, then it would be a very functional paper weight.

[zack247]

but a peperweight nonetheless

[PKM]

OK, I think we've had enough discussion on the relative merits of the iPad for now. If you want to continue this discussion I'm sure you can start a forum thread for it.

[zack247]

ok then... i will

[red-king]

i was thinking more along the lines of using it to store and view documents, and things like that, but i suppose if you wanted a really over priced paperweight, that's fine too...

[dombeef]

Yeah I now have a black berry pearl paperweight once a friend sat on it...

[LuminousObject]

Interesting... I think someone copied you! WikiReader

[PKM]

I was goimg to say "the concept is obvious, they didn't really steal that from me"... but then I saw the tagline right at the top of the website:

Wikipedia In Your Pocket

:\

Oh well- I'm not going to bother suing them, and I have this in the 'Ibles database to demonstrate I was there first :)

[dombeef]

Yeah and this cost more less ($99 for that thing)
And you have the right to sue them because they didnt even say anything about you in their website

[Jayceetoo]

Why dont we just use an iphone or any other smartphone

[PKM]

Well, good question.  The short answer is that if you have a smartphone and are in an area of signal coverage and have battery charge and aren't doing anything else with the smartphone, then you would.  These conditions are true for me more than 90% of the time (it would be more like 99% but I forget to charge my phone a lot).

Bear in mind two things.  Firstly, I conceived this project in about 2004-5, when smartphones were a recent, comparatively rare and expensive novelty.  I had an internet-enabled phone in 2005 but it failed pretty epically at serious internet usage and this thing would have been more useful. 

Secondly, if you don't have phone signal or for some other reason can't access the online Wikipedia (internet outage or biblical plagues hitting their servers), having an offline copy is a useful thing.  Of course, if you have a phone with gigabytes of storage, a big colour screen and a browser you could skip the whole "Linux on a Psion" bit and just stick the Wikipedia dump on the phone itself.

[yoyology]

 I love that all the Related Instructables are for lemon drinks and ginger ales.  :-)

Great 'ible, and serious geek points to you, my friend.

[knoxarama]

so long...
and thanks for all the fish

[alxsmpgmr95]

i was wondering if there was a psp version or a palm pilot version.

[dmastachief]

i think your crazy the only ones i can find are like 100 all the way to 800 bucks

[milsorgen]

Have you heard of an exchange rate?

[vlad_tepesch]

do not forget your Towel!

[Rainh2o]

or peanuts

[your dog]

lol

[Chikara]

42.

[Rainh2o]

LOL

[plane phanatic]

If only I could get the Psion 5Mx PDA cheaper....Other than that, excellent Instructable!

[Lithium Rain]

Any particular reason to use the specific hardware you did? It looks to me as if you could port this to 'most any device (assuming sufficient storage space) that could run a browser.

[Klappstuhl]

Compliments on your incredible Instructable! I'm so going to do something similiar to the Plastic Logic Reader once it comes out!

[PKM]

Thanks! The PLR certainly looks like a nice bit of kit, and if it has a non-crazy price and reads open format (HTML, PDF) then it might be the ebook reader I've been looking for. I've steered clear of the Kindle because although technically you can read plain text and get them to convert your rich documents, it still smells a bit too much like vendor lock-in for my free-software sense of "fair play".

[Klappstuhl]

I think your vendor lock-in theory was right. They did censor George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from people's Kindles. That was also the reason I've used my tablet pc to read pdf's so far, but it's heavy, uses more battery than a car, and is just not a permanent solution.

[LuminousObject]

I heard that they didn't actually censor the books, but that the person who sold Amazon the rights to the book didn't actually have the rights to sell the rights. Or, maybe thats just what they said. That's just what I heard.

[mrdepo96]

it would be great if someone *hint, hint* made the the guild into an app for the iphone/ipod touch! it would be like wiki, where people post their information about subjects and possibly stuff from the hgg books. *by hint i meant someone t other than me because i have limited programming skills* (plz contact me if someone actually does this)

[your dog]

There is the wiki how app, it free, and you can save the instructions for offline use.

[gmjhowe]

I hear that we can expect a 'guide part deux - the complete how to'!

[iectyx3c]

Superb! I am awarding you the coveting Flying Alchemy patch for this excellent and almost magical 'ible. Great work.

[jonrb]

Nice instructable... What size RAM is your PSION 5MX? I found one in the dump, got it for free because the display didnt work. Needless to say I have already started patching it up so that i can use it for this.

[lemminggenocide]

you can download an offline wikipedia viewer for ds if you have a flashcart

[mikemmcmeans]

on a DSi? please... go on.

[lemminggenocide]

Im not sure about a dsi, flashcarts are still being developed. Do you know what a flashcart is. basically, its a game cartridge for ds, that you can put files onto via a microsd card. These include roms (commercial games) which are kind of illegal and homebrew applications and games, which are homemade and not illegal. The wikipedia reader is a homebrew application, and can be found on a homebrew site, such as gba temp. Other homebrew includes music programs like kaos pad, synth keyboards, some really good paint apps, animation apps (around before dsi animation and a lot better) translators, language coaches. basically homebrew apps and games are endless. If ur interested just do some research on "dsi/ ds flashcarts" and "nintendo ds homebrew" ohhh and u can also put emualtors for old sega systems on your ds and play sega roms (game file)/ hope that helps :)

[Briguy9]

Oh, pshaw. I just renamed my entire WINDOWS directory to the name Dave and nothing happened since... (Computer crashes, won't boot up) Just kidding, lol.

[iectyx3c]

Brilliant!! Love Wikipedia and the idea of an offline version. I mean to try this on my old Psion. Will let you know how it turns out. Thanks for posting this.

[Kneesoxrock]

Or drink a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster... But the person doing this would then need a few months rehab. :P

[conrad2468]

something about getting mugged by a slice of lemon? and gold bricks if i am correct?

[Rotten194]

The equivalent of a mugging. Expensive and bad for the head.

[conrad2468]

lol i just looked at this instructable like 5 mins ago.....lol

[jonny_s]

I think a rough description is something along the lines of getting hit in the head by a lemon coated gold brick. Slightly sour, really expensive, and you have one bad headache once you wake up.

[heliosrising]

"the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick". That, coincidently, was copyied from Wikipedia, and verified against my copy of the book. More or less.

[conrad2468]

something like that anyway that thing is toooooo expensive for me do to thats what sucks!

[TheNemo]

I created the Wikibrowserhttp://hackaday.com/2009/05/02/wikibrowser/. I was inspired by this awesome project. Wikipedia is great to have around :D

[quesoman]

so awesome

[Pie Ninja]

WANT! Sounds like something to do once I get a job.

[The Landon]

Do i need to install linux in my PC to run this?

[PKM]

No, but my instructions on how to set up the Psion assume that you have a PC running Linux. You can get a Live CD which will run Linux on your computer without you having to install it, such as Puppy (which I linked to in step 1). Burn the CD, put it in your computer and reboot, and it should start Linux up- from there you just have to find the console and follow the instructions.

[natcrazz]

What other devices can I use for this? Is it anything that will run linux? Would it work on a blackberry? I'm not very experienced with this type of work with computers.

[PKM]

My instructions are largely geared towards doing this with linux on the Psion. It will work with any device that has a browser and enough internal or external storage for the wikipedia dump. If you have a device that already fits those requirements, you just need to unpack the wikipedia dump onto the memory card (see steps 2, 3, 4 and 6). I have resisted the temptation to get a Blackberry so I'm not sure how it would work on one of those, but I don't think they have web browsers so it probably wouldn't. If you have a Blackberry and it does, feel free to correct me.

[kelseymh]

Very nicely done. The platform-specific level of detail is quite appropriate to Instructables (there are nore than enough newbies at any given time to justify the over-explanations). At the same time, the capture and installation of a static Wikipedia is sufficiently platform-independent that a non-newbie ought to be able to adapt your I'ble to their platform with no trouble at all. 4.5 stars :-)

[Ward_Nox]

wikipedia really is like the guide if think about it its a e-book writen by millions of people

[Nesagwa]

There are more similarities. Much like in the novel, Wikipedia is moderated by the worst possible people in the universe and most people dont like them.

[Ward_Nox]

yea Douglas Adams probably would have let them call it the hitchhikers guide to earth if he'd been alive to ask when it started

[killerjackalope]

Almost as bad as youtube users...

[Ananand]

Hehe.

[upriverpaddler]

I have an HP 660lx that could run Jlime. I'm googling my butt off to do something similar. I came across this for you Psion users.

http://www.pscience5.net/PGG.htm

[jornada660]

How to install jlime - linux on hp palmtop 660lx

http://fz.hobby-site.org/hp660lx/jlime-stable/

http://fz.hobby-site.org/hp660lx/jlime-winter/

Regards

[abadfart]

how much did you spend?

[PKM]

As the first step says, the parts I needed to actually buy only cost me £15. I was lucky to get the Psion free- they are the major expense, usually £70-£80 or even more on ebay. (For US$ multiply by about 2 then subtract a things-are-cheaper-in-the-states fudge factor).

[superquack11]

ha ha cool hitch hikers guide to the galaxy

[MostlyHarmless]

Kudos to PKM on the instructable, if it weren't for the requirement of a Psion 5mx I'd be doing it right now.
For anybody wondering about Wikipedia's Database Dumps and related information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

[keastes]

not quite sure how it was managed to get the dump on a card if I could figure that out I could port it to palm (antique m505 owned and used as an ebook reader nice repurpose no?)one thought that occurred to me: import to ereader (or one of its ilk) and use that

[PKM]

Getting the dump onto the card was done in the rather impenetrable steps 2, 3, 4 and 6. The dump comes as a huge zip file full of HTML files, which are unzipped onto the card. I did it all using command line because I figured the instructions would apply to the most people in that way, but you can probably find graphical tools to do most of those steps. You are right, this is reinventing the wheel somewhat as people have already put wikipedia dumps in ebook format for a number of popular readers. Googling around for "wikipedia ebook (your ebook reader name here)" should find it if someone has for your particular format. Bear in mind that the machine you use needs several gigabytes of storage, though, so you will need a large memory card that fits your m505.

[juicebarjoseph]

I recently found something similar for the DS which I'm currently in the process of downloading.

link: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=144827

[PKM]

Interesting! DSs seem to be a little more widespread than 5mxs (slight understatement) but how much storage space do they have? Surely the wiki markup can't be that much smaller than the HTML of the pages? Anyway, if you download this and get it working, I'd love to see screencaps and I'll add them to the Instructable if you like.

[keastes]

NDS roms are 64 MB you can buy rewriteable cards and readers somewhere....

[juicebarjoseph]

Apparently it'll all fit on a 4 Gb micro SD card... I don't have one yet, so am trying it on an emulator... hopefully if it works, I'm gonna enlist the help of a friend of mine who does computer science and cybernetics to build a crawler to get an updated version of wikipedia without all the user pages, talk pages and article stubs, which should hopefully cut down on file size... just got a 2 day download left :S

[PKM]

I thought of that when I was first planning this- Wikipedia explicitly forbid crawling the entire site. For one thing, at one page per second it would take you weeks to download the whole thing, but anyway I believe they make a dump available that doesn't include talk pages etc- check out the wikipedia offline downloads page.

[juicebarjoseph]

I would try downloading the dump and compressing it myself into a file readable by the software, but that sort of thing is way beyond my scope. The 'guide' to do it is at this link: http://forum.palib.info/index.php?PHPSESSID=eeb49af14cbd4f9920accbc59b2484a0&topic=5616.msg38330#msg38330
but the while thing makes no sense to me at all.

[IW5 Industries]

nice instructable but....you had to use that pic now didnt you!?

[Istarian]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but the comments are quite endless. I can't seem to download the latest wikipedia dump. For some reason I get a file named like the dump, but it is only 7KB rather than the whole 14G (note that it takes less than a second to get that file). I have had no problem in the past downloading up to several GB at a time. Is there a way around this? I am using Firefox 2 but I do have IE 7 as well. Also, do you think this a size of file download issue or some other problem?

[PKM]

First question (apologies if you aren't a noob and this seems obvious to you), were you clicking on the link to get to the index page, then downloading the tar.7z file, ratehr than right-clicking on my link and selecting save as?

Secondly, if you were actually downloading
http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-06/en/wikipedia-en-html.tar.7z
then I'm not sure. I just tried it and I got the first few megabytes, FF told me I had 1 day and 9 hours to wait so I guess it had the complete file. Are you behind a firewall, proxy or other restrictive layer that might prevent your download? It's worth trying to open the file you get- it might be an HTML file saying "To stop you using all our bandwidth, you aren't allowed to download this file- talk to your network administrator" or words to that effect. Similarly if you are using a connection with a restrictive bandwidth cap, AOHell or something similar- I can't speak for any of those.

If none of these apply to you, I can only suggest you try to find the file through Wikimedia in case they have moved it somewhere recently and I'm finding the UK mirror service copy or something weird like that.

[lifelong-newbie]

Found my self double taking at the title of step 9. But then again i'm wrong in the head.

[PKM]

I just read that and went "What was step 9? .... No, I totally see how that happened."

Maybe I'm wrong in the head as well.

_{who am I kidding "maybe" I've known that for ages}

[lifelong-newbie]

There's no organisation for us though. Wrong in the head anonymous?

[puffyfluff]

Yeah! I just finished extracting it! Now to get the psion...

[perlpower]

Current Wikipedia Dump:
http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-06/en/
It's 14GB though

[puffyfluff]

I used a friends' broadband internet to download it. It only took five hours.

[alinome.net]

Congrats for the good article. I'm a Psion 5mx user since 2002 and I'm fully satisfied with it. The EPOC OS is great. Last weeks I've been tinkering with installing GNU/Linux in one of these machines (I own several), an old plan of mine. It's great seeing a Debian running on an old good 5mx!

But I was astonished by these words in the article:

"The original Psion operating system was no good because it didn't have the ability to display HTML files, which ultimately are what Wikipedia is made of, so installing Linux was necessary to get this feature."

I'm afraid the author never used a Psion 5mx. The true is that there are two web browsers for Psion (I use them a lot):

1) All Psion 5mx are bundled with a web browser called... Web. It's in the PsiWin CD. You have to install it. It's not the fastest browser on Earth and has many limitations, but works fine. The last version is 2.00 (1999).

2) There's an Opera browser for EPOC! It's version 5.14. It's much faster and powerful than Web and more advanced than the current versions of Dillo. You can get it at Opera's public FTP.

Both browsers are very easy to install.

Thanks again for the interesting instructable.

Cheers,

--
http://alinome.net

[PKM]

Hi alinome, I have used a "vanilla" Psion, but I had no idea the Psion came bundled with a browser! I was given mine by a friend without any of the cables, CD and other accessories so I only saw what was on the machine "out of the box". I don't count the Opera for EPOC as it's an external add-on piece of software, but it seems I'm guilty of not doing my homework sufficiently. I will amend the Instructable when I get a chance (I'm on holiday at the moment) I'm quite annoyed because I managed to break the screen on my Psion, so I'm wondering whether to get a replacement one and plug the CF card straight into it, or try the v2.0 with something like a Nokia internet tablet.

[alinome.net]

Hi, your instructable is very good and it encouraged me to install Debian in one of these marvellous machines, but your wrong premise made me suposse you are a Linux fan who got a 5mx and immediately decided to install Debian in it, but never used the computer.

I'm a Debian user since the 90's, but I couldn't do without my Psion, its many good apps and some programs I wrote for it. I use a German Psion 5mx Pro with a Spanish EPOC. I love to write, to program and to travel by bike. That's why this machine is still unbeatable for my needs. I hope I will use both EPOC and Debian in my Psion soon.

I don't understand what you mean with "I don't count the Opera for EPOC as it's an external add-on piece of software"... Do you mean you would use only the apps bundled with the Psion? There are many good third party apps for Psion; now almost all of them are free (as in free beer) abandonware, and many are --free (as in free speech) :-) Why not to use them? Also Dillo and the whole Debian are "external add-on pieces of software"...

I suggest you to update the article to include and compare all the alternatives:
EPOC + Web
EPOC + Opera
Debian + Dillo
Debian + Lynx

And there are more:
Debian + ELinks (my favourite browser)
Debian + Links
Debian + Links2
Debian + w3m

but those console browsers are not bundled with the Adrian's distro. I will explore how to install them, especially ELinks.

Anyhow I think Opera is the best option for your goal, in all aspects.

Sorry for your broken screen. I suffered it too some time ago. That's why the last years I bought spare Psions on eBay. They are very cheap and I still do prefer a Psion than any modern tablet or PDA. Only 350 g, a good keyboard and 20-30 working hours with two AA standard rechargable cells are unbeatable features. Happily I don't need color or videos or music... :-) But I miss Ethernet, USB... :-(

Cheers,

--
http://alinome.net

[ajwells]

I,m very happy someone has found my Kludged linux useful. I also appologise for missing the E mail PKM sent me asking for permission to reproduce my work. I do not object at all that he has done this. I have recently produced an updated Kludged linux, based on Debian linux 4.0 (Etch), This has only a text browser included, ans so for anyone following this instructable I shall keep the version of kludged linux used here available on the downloads page on my web site. If anyone is interested in linux, kludged and a psion provide a great cheap portable way to learn this wonderful operating system. My best regards to all Adrian Wells

[DaNerd11]

have you read all the hitchhikers books?

[PKM]

Yes, except if you count Salmon Of Doubt. I've read the first five. I think it's fair to say they were a slight inspiration for some bits of the Instructable ;)

[DaNerd11]

lol, yeah, im on life, the universe and everything. they are good books but they are so confuzzling! and also, question, how can the question to the universe be 9*5 (or is it 9*6? i forget) and the answer be 42?

[wrs715]

The question is "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?". The answer, as we count, is of course "56". If you work in Base 13 (think "13 fingers instead of the ten we are familiar with"), though, it's actually "42". I understand that Douglas Adams didn't intend any math tricks, though. (I've read the first four about 15 times each and the last only five. I've read "Salmon of Doubt" too.)

[DaNerd11]

....... base 13???? lol, no idea but ok, ill take ur word for it.

[wrs715]

Sure. This is how it goes:

We count in what Mathematicians call "Base 10". We have ten digits in our number system, 0 through 9. When we write a number, the right-most value is the number of "ones" (or 10⁰), the next (moving to the left) is the number of "tens" (or 10¹) , then "hundreds" (or 10²), and so-on.

When we deal with other number systems, the theory works the same way. In octal (a commonly used number system on old mainframe computers), also known as "Base 8", the right-most digit is the number of "ones" (8⁰), the next digit (again, moving left) the number of "eights" (8¹), then "sixty-fours" (8²), etc.

Consider the number that got us into this mess, "42".

We look at it and assume a "regular" way of counting, which for us is Base 10. There are 2 ones and 4 tens.

With Base 13, the rightmost value is the number of ones (that's the "2") and the next to the left is the "thirteens", the "4".

We can convert this to "regular" numbers easily enough, once we get what's going on: 4 thirteens plus 2 ones (4x13 + 2x1) is 52+2, or 54.

If it helps, I'm just strange enough that I do algebra when I'm bored. :)

[DaNerd11]

lol, i got that after u explained what bases are, im pretty good with math for an 8th grader.

[PKM]

Tom Lehrer (in the song New Math, I highly recommend it although it's a little outdated now) describes base 8 as

"Don't worry, base 8 is just like base 10, if you're missing two fingers."

wrs715: my old maths teacher used to give the people who finished their work early strange, obscure bits of maths that were off the syllabus but still interesting. One of the ones I remember was strange bases- first the usual (10, 16, 8, 2), then some abstruse ones (base 5, 9 and 11 IIRC), then the very weird base 0.5 (only good for fractions between 0 and 2 :P) and the possibly more weird base minus 2.

Numbers 0 to 10 in base -2 go:
0
1
-10
111
100
101
-1110
11011
-1000
-1011
-1010

If you want some head bending, try that.

[DaNerd11]

lol, k, did u like major or minor in math?

[PKM]

We don't do major/minor the same way in the UK, but I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science which is fairly maths-heavy.

[DaNerd11]

nice, im want to major in mechanical engineering which is also math heavy.

[wrs715]

I can't multiply this morning. 6x9 is 54, not 56. It still works out, though. :)

[PKM]

If we knew that, the universe would reset and the question would become harder :)

[DaNerd11]

interesting................... lol

[piekid]

with the psp you need the official OS i have 3.95 but this will mean you lose all home brew apps and stuff. and I'm OK with pictures if you want them.

[Phoghat]

Could a different PDA be used? Say a Pocket PC? I've heard some people have run Linux on them, but since I'm a veritable babe when it comes to Linux I don't know how.

[PKM]

The PocketPC runs Windows CE or similar, doesn't it? That's got to have a web browser.. all you need is a memory card and it shouldn't need any Linux whatsoever. Again, if you have a PocketPC and feel like trying this out, I'd love pictures for step 12.

[brokengun]

Yeah, I just got a Jornada 720 and threw on a dump of Wikipedia. It will view it without installing linux and at a pretty decent rate too. Jornadas are a pretty good platform for hacking if you ask me. I still plan on installing linux but I'm impressed with the speed of the Jornada for such an old palm top rig.

[upriverpaddler]

I have a 660lx and Jlime is kicking my butt. IMHO you'd be better off sticking with CE.

[brokengun]

Hmm... What is giving you trouble.... I've been reading a bit on the Jlime forums, is the 660 version any different than the one for the Jornada 700 family...

[upriverpaddler]

Well, first of all, finding the right userland took me days. Then I kept getting errors extracting it. Then Ubuntu write protects any ext2 partition with "disk" in the title, which is what happens when you format your CF card. Then I messed up the touchscreen calibration during startup and the only way to fix it was thru the command line, which is OK for me, but horrible for anyone else I may give it to. I just found that CE works well with this instructable with only one exception. When I copy the 1.2 gigs from my NTFS formatted hard drive to the FAT formatted CF, the file size increases beyong my 1.9 gig CF, so I lose some pictures.

[PKM]

Oooo.. the Jornada looks a bit like a slightly-better 5mx: it has a similar keyboard, similar form factor but a colour screen and a quicker processor (200MHz StrongARM against an 18MHz ARM710, win). Why have I never heard of this thing?

I might have to investigate one of those.. it looks a little bit bigger than I'd like but you can't have small, fast and cheap :(

[brokengun]

I owned a Zaurus SL-5600 before and this thing as far as I can tell with the wikipedia dump I put on it seems to run way better even though it's specs are all that impressive comparatively. Those Psion things seem to be mostly European or something... I couldn't find one on ebay for very reasonable. Doing a little research on the Jornada, I guess they used to be really great back in their day. They used to be priced really high too. But it's really a little PC, with a CF slot for extra memory (which can now be found at plummeting prices) and a PC card slot. Someone clever could hook up just about anything they want to it really. I paid about $100 even for mine, I think it was a fairly decent deal.

[Phoghat]

Journada palm tops and other PDAs at EXTREMELY reasonable prices can be found at Geeks.com
I don't work there but I just bought an Axim X51v that they said was "refurbished".
It looked brand new to me.

[piekid]

i have toyed with this and it works fine on my psp you have to have an OS with a web browser and the static version of wikipedia then put the treo dump file in there then access it by typing file:/psp/common/treo-dump/wikipedia/index.html it works fine but you need 2 gb or bigger i think. yet its really good

[PKM]

Ah- is there an OS with a browser available for the PSP? I wasn't sure, but I think skate6566 would be interested. If you have pictures I would put them up on the last step (if you are happy with that).

[nobull]

is the any thing cheaper the the psion 5mx that might work well please answer soon love tho 5 out of 5

[xACIDITYx]

Could this be done with, say, a PSP, cell phone, or just being able to do it offline on your laptop? Anyone?

[PKM]

A PSP: I have no idea- it depends whether it has a browser and enough storage space
A cellphone: it depends on the phone. Remember a lot of modern phones can access Wikipedia online using 3G, but I doubt an older phone would be able to. My current phone, for example, can access the internet but it couldn't do this.
A laptop offline: yes, very easily. All you have to do is unzip the wikipedia archive onto your hard disk (in other words, just do step 6) and point your browser at it. I would do it with my junky old non-ethernet-capable laptop if the screen wasn't broken.

[samuraiBSD]

You know, you can do the exact same thing on an iPod Touch or iPhone with Wiki2Touch...it's very simple...

[gorgo333]

when is version 1.2 or 2.0 coming out?

[PKM]

Well, it's funny that you should ask that. Like a complete tool I accidentally cracked the screen on the original, so I've had to retire it. It still works but the touch screen is constantly "clicking" on one spot so the thing won't turn off unless I take the batteries out. It got me my fifteen minutes in some small way, though, and at the moment I'm looking for a suitable device for the v1.1 (it wouldn't be v2.0- that's a creepy time-travelling bird that says sarcastic things to you). At the moment I'm contemplating a Nokia 770, and if I make it I will of course write it up.

[Tailslvr7_7]

I hear you could put anything in Wikipedia, which means that some people in Wikipedia might be lying so you could think that is true, but it isn't. They could say that your grandpa was a major league baseball player and they could get away with it. I'm not saying Wikipedia is bad, but don't depend on it for a report or something huge for school, unless there is no other way.

[jridley]

Remember also that just because it's on paper doesn't make it true either. If it's really important, use multiple sources, even if your first source is the Encyclopedia Britannica. I find Wikipedia to be incredibly useful. Pretty much any esoteric information you might want is there. Britannica doesn't typically have 150 pages of information on characters from Discworld with cross-references, for instance. Given a choice, I'd take Wikipedia over paper any day.

[upriverpaddler]

You have to keep in mind that your arguments (which I am not disagreeeing with) are the same arguments for (or against) the H2G2, which makes the idea all the more appropriate.

[m0tkid]

Hey mate, wikipedia has ways to prevent this; 1) all the information you state must be from a source 2) all the information you add is logged along with your ip address so that when the wikipedia administrators check over it they know who is putting up false information. There are various other practices in place such as discussion pages and neutrality debates but they are the two main ones.

[giod]

To anyone wanting to have Wikipedia on your Zaurus:
I just found a great project that uses a web server on the Zaurus to compress/decompress the wiki pages from a zip file so less storage is needed to hold all the files.
URL: http://www.retsiemuab.de/wiki2zaurus

[giod]

Awesome Ive been looking for static dumps! Ive been wanting to put Wikipedia on my Zaurus for a year now. (The Zaurus is a Linux based PDA made by Sharp) **Giod looks for leather stamping tools to stamp "DONT PANIC!" on the front of his Zaurus case.

[theringer321]

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

[sbot]

By the way..have you read douglas adams' other books?(dirk gently?)

[sean_cats]

OH LORDY THIS INSTRUCTABLE IS LONG

[PKM]

Hehe... sorry about that, I tried to trim it down as much as possible without being obscure and effectively saying "mount the CF card, partition it, fdisk it with these file systems, unpack these two archives to it and plug it into you Psion". It could be worse, my HDR instructable is twice as long with less content, I should really edit that to make it a bit shorter.

[PKM]

Yes... Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul bent my head so severely that I have read it at least a dozen times and still don't 100% understand it. I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a few times and didn't entirely understand that one either.

[data23]

Salmon of doubt was supposed to connect HGTG To Dirk Gently but Adams died! :(

[Sir-Jackington]

I really like the reference to The Hitchiker'sGuide To The Galaxy and especially this instructable.

[bonedevil]

the real hitchikers guide to the galaxy minus the sarcasm

[sbot]

May i also add that most ipods can be used as disk drives by checking the 'enable disk use' option :[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1478?viewlocale=en_US] in itunes and then files can be manually added(though i dont think you can view them through your ipod)
but i see no such option when i connect my ipod touch..

[sbot]

yea i had to oscillate back and forth through the chapters like a sub etha thumb gone wild, before i could even get the main storyline of LDTTotS

however i did enjoy his typical, utterly nonsesical yet somehow ringing-a-lemony-bell sorta humour..it's sort of a down-to-earth, inexpensive equivalent of a pan galactic gargle blaster...

Meanwhile my computer is still trudging along the vast stretches of cyberspace to download the wikipedia schools dump..I still don't know how to proceed after that..

There are methods to put wikipedia on older ipods with the 'notes' features, :
encyclopodia: http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html which works on ipod generations 1 to 4, ipod minis and photo ipods

also just in case anyone wants to know how to add plaintext docs to ipod, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93951 shows you how..for the above mentioned ipods..

but nothing mentioned about ipod touch..i don't know how one adds saved html files to ipod touch, and how ipod's safari handles saved files added externally through the computer(or how one views these files) ,.. so i dont really know what to do..

[sbot]

Im a bit lost in the complexities of the false pixelated metaphysical computer plane ;) but how do i put wikipedia schools on my ipod touch after I've downloaded it? (also wikipodia does not support ipod touch) because Im downloading it and Im in the dark about the file type......

[sbot]

The syncing is exactly my problem...Right now i can't (or atleast don't know how to) put anything on my ipod thats not in iTunes(which is full of glitches) atleast not without a jailbreak..it's great technology with stupid restrictions..another one of life's imponderables Thanks anyway PKM!!! Your instructable is really great and by no means dry..thanks to the relaxing effect of your weak lemon drink;-) Long live hitchhikers and their guides!

[PKM]

In the dark about which file type? The wikipedia dump should be a zipped archive of HTML files which you can probably decompress to your computer by following the relevant instructions. Then you need to find some way of storing these files on your ipod, which I have no idea about as I'm a techno-luddite and don't even own a regular old-school ipod. It looks like the ipod touch has Safari, so if you can find a way to transfer the wikipedia files to the ipod (I have no idea how difficult they will have made this, stupid proprietary synch software) then you should be good to go.

[FzerozeroT]

This is actually VERY cool, I'm going to do the same on my phone, but probably dumb it down a little for updating purposes. Has this been done before on other devices? I'll do it a little on my Nokia E50, but I'm still waiting on a Neo1979.

[Xial]

I'd wager that something similar to this could be done on a Nintendo DS, though it may lack pictures, since none of the homebrew browsers that I'm aware of can display images. Maybe I should dig out that old 1GB card and give it a run.

[PKM]

Please do- the Guide on a DS would be a whole new level of cool. If you do, I'd love some pictures :)

[Xial]

Bit of a snafu so far, though it'd be overcome by two things:

• More HDD space
• A free 4 GB microSD card. :)
  

I guess I can back up my 2 GB card this weekend, and scrounge up some more HDD space -- maybe I'll put it on my external HDD, and move it over to the other notebook, since this one's almost at capacity.

Then I can start trying to put Wikipedia in my pocket.
I can already tell that I'm going to be limited by space, since my device doesn't support SDHC, but it'll be a fun challenge. It's funny: without doing extra work on the text-only copy of Wikipedia I grabbed from your article, I know I won't be able to fit it and a browser on a 1GB card.

[csudcy]

Thought I'd upload a picture of nDict here (see first step for more info or http://ndict.sourceforge.net ).

Nick

[kjrviking]

can this be used on other PDAs?

[PKM]

Yep- see step 12 above. I know it is possible on any PDA or smartphone that has an HTML browser and supports large memory cards, it has been done on an iPod (google for Wikipodia), I believe it has been done on some sort of smartphone before, you could probably do it on an amazon Kindle- the list is as long as the list of devices with a screen, browser and memory card slot. The psion-specific part of this Tible is the linux install, but if your PDA has a browser already then that whole part is unnecessary, you should just need the wikipedia dump on a memory card.

[csudcy]

Hi,

I've been working on a version for pocket PC/Windows mobile since I saw the iPod version (and thought 'I want that!'). It's written in .NET (and as a nice coincidence also work on desktop versions of Windows & theoretically anything that will run .NET) and is indeed based on around a webserver. It's called nDict and can be found at http://ndict.sourceforge.net (I should soon be releasing new dictionary torrents based on the static HTML dumps).

[roystonlodge]

Oh yeah, if you wanted to do this with a different PDA, you could convert the static version of Wiki to a Plucker file and read it on a Palm device.

[HAL 9000]

so this could be done on a Palm? I was wondering cause i have one lying around that i dont really use, but if i had Wikipedia on it i sure as well would!! any advice on how to get it going?

[PKM]

I am not familiar with Palms so can't give you any specific advice other than what is in step 12 above. A quick google for Plucker says it is a piece of Palm software that reads HTML files, so all you would need to do is install Plucker (I have no idea how to do that, and no way of finding out as I don't own a Palm) and find some way of storing the WIkipedia dump on your Palm (a memory card of some description). The linux component of this Tible is not applicable to any other PDAs but you shouldn't need it if they have a native HTML reader.

[HAL 9000]

awesome, thanks for the advice, ill get going on that rght away and post pictures if i finish

[roystonlodge]

Since there seems to be interest, I think I should make a few more comments as caveats: - I don't know how much memory the static Wiki takes up. The amount of memory on your Palm device would be your only limitation to this, as far as I can see. My newest Palm is a IIIxe, which only has 8MB of storage, and I'm already using more than half. Of course, older Palms are pretty cheap on eBay, so you might find one with an SD slot. - Plucker is a great off-line reader for Palm, but it's not the only one, and it does have its limitations. For example, it doesn't handle tables very well. On the other hand, it's free. If you want to use something more sophisticated, iSilo is a commercial off-line reader for Palm that can handle much more complex web formatting, but it'll cost you something like $29.

[sbot]

nice instructable PKM, by the way..

[sbot]

hey nicornal..pardon my ignorance but how exactly did u put wikipedia schools on ur ipod touch...data url?

[deth2all]

i have it on my ipod... wikipodia

[jbridge21]

You can store and browse Wikipedia on an Ipod (since 2006).

[ghostis]

I have a GP2X, which should work nicely for a project like this. Does anyone know a good browser for it? (I have an F-100)

Shameless Plug: IMHO, the F-100, now that the F-200 is out, is among the cheapest full-featured Linux toys out there! See http://www.dynamism.com/f-200/pricing.shtml

Cheers!

-ghostis

[duct tape apprentice]

I'd sass this hoopy frood!

[roystonlodge]

I've got a Blackberry 8800, and my employer pays for the data access, so I just look up Wikipedia on-line wirelessly, which is actually even more advanced than the way the HHGTTG is described in Douglas Adams' books, since 'the guide' was only updated once during the entire five-book trilogy!

[mpdehnel]

There's a full download from April 2007 here: http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/April_2007/en/ - quite chunky though!!

[buchd]

So it better say "mostly harmless" when you look up Earth. ;)

Great instructable! I know extremely little about Linux but the Hitchhiker's connection was enough to pique my interest. =D

[jonny_s]

This has got to be one of the most awesome things I have read in a while. I am going to be doing an ebay search for a Psion as soon as possible. And shortly thereafter coat the outside of it in brown leather and big happy letters saying Dont Panic. Favourited!!

[or1gb1u3]

this is awsome I am moved and want to hack my BB_Pearl to have a wiki that would reside on a micrSD in the phone

[YummyPancakes]

Ah, weak lemon drink... made me thirsty. Darn you, summer sour fruit juice cravings.

[theburn7]

same here

[slorge]

you are one hoopy frood!

[conrad2468]

put it on youtube

[CTroyer]

Love the instructable, but as I haven't seen an instructable on making a subether thumb yet, all I really need is my towel and the entry from the guide on Earth; "Mostly Harmless." That even fits on my Palm VIIx.

[Nicornal]

I put school's wikipedia on my ipod touch. :) It's not quite as awesome as this, I have to view it through safari, so I don't get the vaguely realistic feeling that this has..

[mohnkern]

Static version of wikipedia is here:

http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/April_2007/en/

However, it's also several gigabytes.

[RussNelson]

4GB micro-sd cards are now becoming cheap enough for this to be reasonable on the Nokia n810. Or if you have a n800 you can use a regular sd card. Seems like the biggest hangup is that the wiki dump isn't current.

[PKM]

Well, by its nature it is never going to be up to the minute unless you get Wikipedia pages on demand from the web, but I believe a static dump of the current english pages will be coming out fairly soon which would make it a lot more up-to-date (and make me have to buy a bigger CF card). If you have an n810, or something similar, I'd love to see this on 21st century hardware- the colour screen would doubtless be an advantage :)

[RussNelson]

Oh, but it gets better. Grovel through the dump and look for lat/lon values. Throw them into a database. Using the n810's GPS receiver and flite, read out the articles for upcoming things. Hehe.

[=SMART=]

This is really cool, and usefull, in class all the work would be so easy!

[The Expert Noob]

hmmmm...... im going to have to dig up an old toysRus kids laptop and see what I can hack into it. Brilliant

[gorgo333]

your zarking brilliant.

[tmfark]

This would make a great steampunked project.

[ongissim]

Great instructable! I would love to see this done on a Zipit.

[abun1991]

Wikipedia is Wiki-Wiki Fresh! (I got that from my history teacher!)

[Jake Turner]

Wow! I think I'll make an app like this for the Pandora, once I get ahold of one.

http://www.openpandora.org

[beefjerkyhasanaftertaste]

Have some of that Ol' Janx Spirit! Awesome!

[LinuxH4x0r]

HACKADAY

Congrats!

[TheMoonMaster]

LOL 42

[Garyzhere]

For the Palm try TomeRaider 3. i have been having the text of wikipedia.org on my TX for years. I don't know all the OSs that TomeRaider supports... maybe yours.

[Fruppi]

Yup. You're getting favorited just for the Hitchhiker's Guide references. Well done!

[bhunter736]

Awsome! Glad you remembered your towel, you really are one hoopy frood!

[Lord Azazel]

I have a feeling Simon Quinlank, King of all Hobbies has been around... Good instructable!

[ficofeto]

this is bloody brilliant!

[gildo4realdo]

..... or buy an iphone.

[gildo4realdo]

i apologize, that was a little harsh... i actually like the hitchhikers theme as well.

[PKM]

What I found fun about this project was that apart from the CF card this is all 90s technology, and of course it works offline so you can take up, for instance, the mountain in step 6 (although there's probably Wifi up there, stupid tourist resorts). It also works on public transport, which is when I most want to be able to randomly browse Wikipedia. Sadly it will be a while before I can build an offline Google earth in your pocket, i think the 3G phones beat me to that one fair and square.

[inquisitive]

So it comes with a towel, right? And a babelfish keychain...promotional packages abound!

[Neodudeman]

I love the hiker theme of this post. 5 Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters for you!

[LinuxH4x0r]

Great job! Weak lemon drink -lmao!