I am sure that all of us are aware that when searching for information on the web, there is a lot of rubbish mixed in with reliable information. What I had not realised until looking for help with my new Pi is that there is a lot of stuff that was reliable when originally written but is now out-of-date.
Not a new problem. Not an internet problem (text books go out of date too). Not even a purely computing problem either.
Always check the date of a resource before following it. And which Linux distro and named release of it they're talking about.
It also doesn't help that a lot of guides and posts are:
- Fire and forget (i.e written with no intent to keep them up to date)
- Provided by someone who doesn't really understand what they're doing
- And by someone who just did what they found from a similar guide written by someone with all the same problems. Who cribbed it from someone else who ...
- Explain the what but not the why
- Expect everything to just work and provide no advice on coping when it doesn't.
- Include unnecessary steps and/or unnecessary use of sudo
- Include stuff that is simply incorrect
- Include stuff that has not been tested (and often don't say so).
- ...
Yes, I hold myself to better standards. Somewhat successfully I believe (based on downloads and feedback). Link in sig. I should add that those guides are no longer being maintained (for health reasons) but are expected to remain valid for quite some time yet.
Statistics: Posted by thagrol — Thu Mar 13, 2025 4:56 pm