Wikipedia on Pandora

[agent_orange]

Just remembered from the gp32x board there was a lot of talk about getting a light weight & offline version of Wikipedia loaded onto our Pandoras. I wrongly assumed that it was simply a case of downloading, and then plonking onto your SD card. It seems to be a bit more complex - if you want the search facility that is. So I was wondering if anybody has given this a bash? In the meantime I will give it a whirl myself and let you know what my findings are.

 

[Blue Protoman]

3,526,000+ articles, constantly being updated. And that's just in English.

 

[Caine]

3,526,000+ articles, constantly being updated. And that's just in English.

It's less than you think as text compresses really well. You can fit it on a single SD card, though it will use the majority of your available space.


@OP. This has been discussed before at the gp32x boards, here is a thread about it.


Wikipedia actually provides static HTML dumps of their entire archive.

 

[Jourdy288]

How big do you think it'd be with all the media included? :mellow:

 

[Blue Protoman]

It's less than you think as text compresses really well. You can fit it on a single SD card, though it will use the majority of your available space.


@OP. This has been discussed before at the gp32x boards, here is a thread about it.


Wikipedia actually provides static HTML dumps of their entire archive.

But can you READ the text that's being compressed?


Also, SD cards vary wildly in size; saying Wikipedia can fit on one doesn't mean that much.

 

[slaeshjag]

But can you READ the text that's being compressed?

zcat ftw

 

[Caine]

But can you READ the text that's being compressed?


Also, SD cards vary wildly in size; saying Wikipedia can fit on one doesn't mean that much.

Sure, you can decompress it when viewing.


If you had followed the link, you would have seen that the English archive is about 15GB.

 

[skeezix]

BP -- shoudl really check some history before getting all riled -- people have been carrying around compressed 'entire wikipedia' on phones and PDAs for the entire lifetime of wiki. (Sure, it was easier 10 years ago


Its actually not that big.


(Obv its huge, but in terms of data size, its not that big.) These are the days when you can fit entire corporate databases onto your ipod, when 2TB disks can be picked up for $50 (ie: the price of a couple movie tickets.)


I've got 500 or 1000 CDs .. if I rip them all to FLAC, they take up a small portion of disk space.


To be specific .. the entire English Wik ia year ago was _13GB_. I forget where, but in wiki theres a page to calculate the size of <thin> .. bytes, pages, largest articles, average word per article, that stuff; just chanhge the dropdown to size of Wiki root, and poof, it tells you. And you can compress it


jeff

 

[Blue Protoman]

OK, I guess that's the case; but what about the other languages? Sure, you won't need to download every page from Italian to Kuanyama (which, by the way, only has five articles), but what about people who are bilingual?

 

[Asiyura]

OK, I guess that's the case; but what about the other languages? Sure, you won't need to download every page from Italian to Kuanyama (which, by the way, only has five articles), but what about people who are bilingual?

If you're a true bilingual, you'll be able to translate on-the-fly.


Anyway, the best way to read wikipedia is by using an internet connection.


And it's pretty easy with a wifi hotspot or a phone with data plan via bluetooth.

 

[leathco]

Its very possible, and has been done on other platforms. Encyclopedia for the iPhone, and WikiPock for the Blackberry. Each has around a 4 or 5 gb file download that has the entire wikipedia in text format (no pics), and its searchable as well.

 

[Zelest]

but what about people who are bilingual?

I can say that I rather use the English pages than the Swedish ones anyway. The English one contains much more information, and often got better sources.

 

[Caine]

OK, I guess that's the case; but what about the other languages? Sure, you won't need to download every page from Italian to Kuanyama (which, by the way, only has five articles), but what about people who are bilingual?

They just download both languages. For instance, the Dutch Wikipedia only contains 1GB so Dutch+English would be 16 or 17 GB. The German pages are 3.2GB, So for both (German+English) you require about 19GB.

 

[Austin25]

I know I'm missing the point by saying this, but I think I'd prefer to access it over the internet.

 

[kwh2010]

I've been using evopedia on an N900. The english evopedia dump file is 8.2GB from 16/01/2010 which I have stored the microsd card. When I'm using it offline I see text only information. If your connected online you get the images loaded as well. I think it works quite well.