Advice on Graphics crd does it play nice with ubuntu

Thu Jun 23 21:53:33 UTC 2022

On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 22:59, hput <hput3 at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> > I cleaned the link up. You can remove /ref and everything after it
> > from any Amazon link.
>
> That is an exellent tip.  Thanks for that.

What she said. But you need to learn to work this stuff out.

For instance, in that monster URL:

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-Graphics-IceStorm-ZT-A30600H-10M/dp/B08W8DGK3X/ref=sr_1_9?ascsubtag=wp-us-1279441791324734200-20&geniuslink=true&keywords=Nvidia+GeForce+RTX+3060&qid=1656002361&sr=8-9

It's not just a big blob of text. It's a list, joined by slashes.
Everyone should know webpages are files in a directory, right?

So if I have a server called fred.org, and a folder called web, and in
that a folder called images, and in that, a image called flag, it
would be:

fred.org/web/images/flag.jpg

Let's look at your Amazon URL:

https://
The protocol. This site uses encrypted HTTP.

www.

Standard header for web servers.

amazon.com

The domain

/ZOTAC-GeForce-Graphics-IceStorm-ZT-A30600H-10M/

Some human-readable words. We can tell that because it has readable words in it.

dp/

A folder. Or something. Don't know, don't care.

B08W8DGK3X/

Some kind of part number

ref=sr_1_9?ascsubtag=wp-us-1279441791324734200-20&geniuslink=true&keywords=Nvidia+GeForce+RTX+3060&qid=1656002361&sr=8-9

Aha, now, here, the slashes change to &. This is a REFerence. It's
telling the server how you got here. This isn't part of a path. It's
on the end.

We could dissect it, but do you care? I don't.

What you do is this:

https://www.amazon.com/

Well duh, it's not going to be that.

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-Graphics-IceStorm-ZT-A30600H-10M

Try it. Doesn't work.

/dp/

Try that if you like.

Betcha it won't work.

 All Amazon product pages have /dp/ in them somewhere, I reckon. It
does not carry much more info.

But then we add the next bit:

B08W8DGK3X/

So we get:

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-Graphics-IceStorm-ZT-A30600H-10M/dp/B08W8DGK3X/

And presto that works fine.

Stop looking it as a lump. It's not a lump. It's a chain of lumps.

Why am I telling you this? Because you need to know.

Because you are also looking at this as if it were a lump:

ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC 12GB GDDR6 192-bit 15 Gbps
PCIE 4.0 Gaming Graphics Card, IceStorm 2.0 Cooling, Active Fan
Control, Freeze Fan Stop ZT-A30600H-10M

It's not a lump. It has commas in. That is not a product name. It's a
product listing, a database entry.

It contains multiple separate bits of information, but you are
treating it as if it were a name.

It's not.

Look:

ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC 12GB GDDR6 192-bit 15 Gbps
PCIE 4.0 Gaming Graphics Card,

Comma. So, like the URL, ignore all the crap on the end:

IceStorm 2.0 Cooling, Active Fan
Control, Freeze Fan Stop ZT-A30600H-10M

Cut it off, throw it away.

Now, look at what is left:

ZOTAC

A maker's name.

Gaming

A model range.

GeForce RTX 3060

A model number.

Twin Edge OC

Some marketing BS.

12GB

An amount of memory.

GDDR6

A type of memory.

192-bit

A memory bus width.

15 Gbps

A transfer speed.

None of that is part of the model name. This is *description*.

So we throw it away.

Leaving us with a name, a very clear helpful name:

ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3060

Zotac made the card. It is in their gaming range.

GeForce RTX 3060 is the GPU.

> You always give such good and thorough help here... I hate to snivel
> like this BUT;
>
> If you are talking about the URL just above.  I see nothing like what
> you describe.  None of the dropdowns have anything close to the card
> in OP.  I'm probably blind or just dim witted.  But I see no way to
> look it up or even add it.  There appears to be nothing like the
> ZOTAC.

Why are you looking for Zotac?

Zotac made the card. You would look on Zotac's website for info on the
product they made. But it is based around an nVidia GPU. You know that
because you are looking on nVidia's website.

That and the Amazon website clearly says:

Graphics Coprocessor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

Look at the bit in block caps. That means it is important.

So don't look for some 3rd party company who bought the GPU chip off
nVidia, slapped it on a card with some RAM and stuck a fan on it.

Wrong place, wrong company, wrong wrong wrong in general.

You are looking for a GeForce RTX 3060

That means you are looking for:

Model range: GeForce <- because nVidia make others
Model series: RTX  <- because there are lots of models of GeForce as
you should have worked out browsing Amazon
Model number: 3060 <- but there may be other nVidia parts with a model
number of 3060 so we need to go through the first two, well, first.

So, never having *heard* of this card before hitting reply:

nvidia.com
... Pick USA.
... Drivers.
... GeForce

Oh look, RTX is first. How convenient.

RTX 30 series. OK. It's not a notebook card, obviously.

RTX 3060. Next to last. That tells us this is probably a low-end card,
that the company selling is trying to make look attractive by loading
it with RAM. This may be a bad deal.

Back to Amazon, because Browser Tabs!

Over $400.

At this point, personally, I am thinking "hmmmm, doesn't sound like a
bargain to me so far."

Anyway, back  to nVidia.

I pick Linux, I pick "new features" but hey you do you.

And lo:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/184248/en-us/

Or the "production" driver:

Back, change, clickety:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/189809/en-us/

You need to learn to stop, to think, to _parse_. Analyse what you are
looking at. Don't just panic and blindly try to pattern-match. It
doesn't work.

I spent hours training a new technical writer about 3 years ago. After
days of training, she learned how to Google a problem.

She found Stack Exchange. She found the question. She found a wall of
text. She picked the top answer because it had the most votes.

It didn't work.

She didn't parse. She didn't read to the end. Everyone who went
through school was told: don't start writing when you start the exam.
Read to the end *first*.

Pick the easy ones. Do them first. Then go on to the harder ones. This
is how you pass exams.

This is how to learn to Do Computers.

Read to the end. Parse. Search. Sort.

If my colleague had read to the next few answers, she'd have read the
answers that said "the top one is very old, and no longer works. Don't
do that. Do this."

But she didn't. She didn't look at the date on the top-voted answer
and see it was over 10Y old and therefore referred to an old version
of the product.

She was flustered and she tried to skim in a foreign language and she
got the wrong answer.

She did not keep the job.

You did the same. You got flustered. You didn't use your time well.
You copied a huge URL *without looking inside it* but you spend the
time you could have done trying to crop it on writing a sentence about
how long it was.

Mistake.

You tried searching for a 3rd party vendor on a GPU maker's site. You
didn't look at the Amazon page which plainly stated the GPU model. You
didn't look at the 3-line description and parse it.

Little Girl gave you all the pointers, but you didn't take them.

She is nice.

I am not. I am a grumpy old git and it's past my bedtime. So I just
tried to teach you How To Computer.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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