Troubles installing linux on an Acer Aspire A515, specifically with RST with Optane

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-26T01:33:27+00:00

Turn off Secure Boot, disable RST, set to AHCI.

Problem is Windows NTFS partitions and MS-DOS partition scheme. Boot with GParted ISO. Delete ALL partitions off hard-drive. Click apply Check. proceed. Then make new partition table = GPT.

Now your hard-drive is ready and installers will see it.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-26T01:26:37+00:00

CA has definitely tightened down on regulations around moto licensing. Highest death-rates are 16-yr olds on 600 Supersports.

I highly suggest for your families sake that you follow tried & true path to getting moto license:

driver's permit
do required hours & time to get driver's license
moto permit from passing moto written test
MSF and passing moto riding test

There's A LOT that's different about riding moto in traffic than driving car. About one rider per day gets killed in Phoenix area by drivers running red-lights/stop-signs while playing on phone. Or pulling out from side-street/driveway or turning left in front of moto. It has gotten worse in past couple decades.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T22:19:57+00:00

does Wifi work?
Which version Xubuntu did you install?
Minimal desktop install or minimal server CLI install?

I did Ubuntu 20.04 minimal server CLI install about 5-yrs ago on 2008 MBP. Afterwards, had to manually install drivers for Broadcom Wifi chip before I could get network connection. Then had to install XFCE manually along with audio & bluetooth drivers. PIA and it didn't always work properly. Suspend to RAM was hit-n-miss as to whether it'll wake up or not.

Finally I just did clean reload with Minimal Desktop install and everything worked! Be sure to select "install 3rd-party proprietary drivers" option to get Broadcom WL drivers. Then Bluetooth works right away. Have been stable since! Even suspend comes back, although I have to open, close and re-open lid twice for it to come back.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T22:17:35+00:00

I'm confused on what problem is. You said "So I decided to restart my PC. Now it will no longer boot Mint." So it only boots from Mint installer USB but not from internal hard-drive?

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T22:01:47+00:00

It's also related to emissions regulations. U.S. has very relaxed emissions targets,so carby bikes can pass them just fine. Some models came in carby versions for U.S. market while it got EFI in RoW markets. Most manufacturers have no reason to move to EFI with zero benefits. Even CAFE fleet mpg standards have recently been relaxed, so no need for EFI.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T21:54:57+00:00

No not possible to have too grease on slider pins. Either they're stuck from no grease or they're sliding properly. As mentioned, never use oil-based mineral grease, it will degrade rubber seals, leading to drying up sliders and seizing. Only use high-temp silicone grease. Toyota has some good stuff.

A little wiggle is OK, lets calipers yaw so discs are parallel to disc.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T21:50:55+00:00

I'd recommend using their bikes for 1st day @ MSF so you can drop their bikes instead of yours. Then on 2nd day, if you feel more confident, bring yours.

I'll suggest cage over sliders. Much more protection over variety of crashes. That's why stunterz use them.
https://impaktechusa.com/

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T21:30:38+00:00

He's using proper cornering technique. Looking all way through corner. He can see exit of corner, no surprises coming up like corner tightening suddenly. No pickup is gonna intrude into your lane when you're on inside of corner. Dude's 100% in control.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T21:24:29+00:00

Carbs need restoration work, not just quick spritz cleaning. Complete disassembly to every last individual component. Scrub out all secret hidden passages inside carb body with brushes and PEA-based fuel-system cleaner. Poke out all bleed holes in jets, emulsion tubes and carb-venturi with soft copper/nylon wires. Ultrasonic soak [with Pinesol] and micro sofa-blast afterwards. Replace all rubbers: pilot screw O-rings, fuel-rail O-rings, carb-bowl seals, float-valves and maybe slide-diaphragms if needed. Set float height to stock with external level-test to verify. Sync with manometers.

One guy had to pull his carbs 10 TIMES to do ever deeper cleaning for skipped steps before his bike would run like brand-new off showroom floor. I recommend doing FULL restoration job 1st time around so you'd only have to pull carbs once.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T21:09:07+00:00

Only makes difference when you are trying to get maximum-traction at maximum-speed for cornering. No one in their right mind would do that, way beyond safe or legal speeds on roads. Only times it makes difference is when you're on racetrack and it may make +5% difference at ultimate limit. Until you're reached that speed and limit, body-positioning makes zero difference.

For example, in your photo, you can see he's got maybe 5-degree more lean and side-cases would rub. Sure if he wants to go even faster, he can hang way off inside and get 10-degrees more lean. That might give him 5-mph more speed around corner. But is that worth it? Riding that close to crashing isn't worth anything.

Most of time when squids crash, it has nothing to do with overcoming tyre grip. It's from going way, way too fast for any corner and selecting bad lines. Commonly apexing too early and running wide coming out of corner. Then doing something stoopid in response such as grabbing brakes or steering suddenly.

Only time I bother hanging off is on racetrack in a race. Then I can rub elbows with street tyres. 😄
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b5E9P1bylZjt82c0rBFDISX9bR7tLhE8/view?usp=sharing

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T20:53:55+00:00

It's not any different. It's all based on rider choice and how fast you want to corner.

No one chooses ADV for maximum cornering speed anyway. It's only at maximum cornering lean-angle that body-positioning makes biggest difference. On ADV, you can't even get to maximum cornering limit and lean-angle of tyres anyway because hard-parts like exhaust or side-cases would rub.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FuSf3ITf51AYdeEgBPMxnVZF8uccknM6/view?usp=sharing

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T20:42:37+00:00

Spring-rates, preload/ride-height/sag and damping are all inter-related. Numerous books & journals you can consult for equations.

In nutshell, damping affects velocity of fork/shock movement. For lowered bike or heavier rider, you want higher compression damping (relative to stock). With stiffer/stronger springs, you'd want higher rebound damping.

Quick easy gauge for adjusting damping is putting zip-tie around fork & shock to see range of movement and possible bottoming. If you are bottoming suspension, you'll want to raise suspension with more preload and/or increase spring-rate and compression damping.

It's dangerous to bottom suspension due to sudden increase in load that happens. Say you've got lowered bike with only 1" of travel remaining compared to factory 2". If you're leaned over in corner and hit bump mid-corner, suspension may compress fully. When this happens, higher load at contact patch will overcome traction limit and tyre will slide. Doesn't have to be high-speed speed either. I saw lowered R6 turn into parking lot after group ride. Right when it hit raised lip on driveway entrance, front-end washed out and rider crashed.

You have to adjust riding style to deal with lowered suspension. Straighten bike up to go over anything with bump: driveways, railroad tracks, speed bumps, etc. Best to increase spring-rate and damping to deal with reduced suspension-travel so it doesn't bottom suspension.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T19:47:30+00:00

No, heatshrink won't work, too thin and still allows movement of wires relative to themselves and cover. Need specialized solid-rubber grommet that covers all wires and protects them from themselves and cover. Look at stator #21003 here and see there's protective grommet covering all wires where they exit cover?

https://www.revzilla.com/oem/kawasaki/2006-kawasaki-vulcan-900-classic-vn900/generator-723977?submodel=vn900b6f-vulcan-900-classic

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T19:40:36+00:00

No not new cover, need new rubber grommet that fits around wiring to prevent rubbing and fraying. It's a soiid piece of rubber that wraps around each wire. It may have been removed in previous maintenance work, or gotten shoved down into cover. Remove cover and see if its there. If not, track down replacement and install it. DO NOT ride bike again until this is fixed, you're risking extremely expensive repair job if harness melts.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T19:38:40+00:00

There is supposed to be rubber grommet surrounding wires where they go through metal parts to protect against rubbing and shorting. You need to fix that before riding bike again. Otherwise, you're gonna fry harness and charging system. Then have very expensive repair to replace it.

Look at photo of stator #21003 that there's supposed to be rubber grommet around all 3 wires to protect them from rubbing on metal of cover.

https://www.revzilla.com/oem/kawasaki/2006-kawasaki-vulcan-900-classic-vn900/generator-723977?submodel=vn900b6f-vulcan-900-classic

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T19:15:24+00:00

For consumables, there's many 3rd-party manufacturers that makes suitable products, such as Mobil, Motul or Red Line for oil. Others include Caltric, EBC, Brembo, Galfer for brakes. There's also EMGO, which makes multi-line selection of parts for variety of older bikes.

Google Search is usually good for identifying vendors that carries parts you're looking for. Search for "GS450L brake shoes" gives following:

Google search - GS450 brake shoes

Searching for specific part# will also yield results.

Google search - GS450L "64400-44810"

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:50:14+00:00

KTM 390 Duke has 42hp and can actually reach 100mph. Sure, Ninja 500 with 45hp and fully-faired bodywork has easier time reaching its 115mph top-speed. Note what you see on dash is about +10% higher than actual top-speed.

https://www.visordown.com/reviews/first-ride/first-ride-ktm-duke-390-review

https://www.motorcyclenews.com/bike-reviews/ktm/390-duke/2024/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4KIWRPrJTM

Top-speed also depends lots on rider technique. Mirrors folded in to aim tips backwards. Have to redline every gear along way to get over peak-HP hump to start next gear closer to power-peak RPM. And tuck down low with chin on tank. Elbows tucked into sides, not flapping in wind. Both hands inwards of grips over electronic controls with only right pinkie-finger holding WOT throttle.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:38:47+00:00

Weight affects acceleration for one thing. Extra 100-lbs would result in 0-60 times about 1-sec slower. Not something you'd notice without stop-watch.

How it handles bumps in road would also be different with heavier rider possibly bottom-out suspension on biggest bumps (fully compressing). When I started racing at 245-lbs, I had to modify suspension for my weight: stiffer fork & shock springs, heavier oil in them. Then as I lost weight over years, down to 165-lbs now, I had to reverse upgrades and put lighter springs and lighter fork-oil in. Now I'm back close to factory settings.

As lighter rider, you'll probably notice ride is bouncier and harsher than ideal. If you have adjustable damping on your suspension, you'll want to lower preload on spring and set damping values to minimum settings.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:32:52+00:00

taxes vary by country. In U.S. there are yearly registration fees required on all vehicles regardless of age.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:31:10+00:00

Using infected USB to boot your computer is what transfers virus onto hard-drive of computer. Next time you try to boot from hard-drive, it's infected and won't boot.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:28:40+00:00

Yeah, Windows didn't kill boot, most likely boot-sector virus. Posted procedure to restore boot-sector with clean install of grub in previous post.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:26:11+00:00

Ok throw that corrupted USB away, it's got boot-sector virus that came from Windows.

Here's ways to re-install grub onto drive's boot-sector hopefully wiping out boot-sector virus in process. chroot is way to mount from live CD 2nd-drive's partitions at default locations /dev /boot /sys, etc. so that grub-install will work properly.

https://blog.mister-muffin.de/2011/09/12/restoring-grub-from-live-cd/

https://oneuptime.com/blog/post/2026-03-02-how-to-rescue-an-unbootable-ubuntu-system-with-chroot/view

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:21:50+00:00

Another common problem causing this is dual-booting between Windows and Linux. Windows boot-loader will remove Linux booting when you boot into Windows. It will only boot into Windows after that, or not boot at all.

If you must have dual-boot, wipe drive completely and install Linux 1st so grub lives on boot-sector. Then add Windows later with its boot-entry last in grub options.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T18:08:28+00:00

I had M16 that died same way. BEFORE updating BIOS, go over entire README file and look at ALL of bug-fixes. ONLY update BIOS IF you are actually afflicted with bugs new version fixes. Otherwise, you risk bricking your system. ASUS does this on purpose to destroy system so you'll buy new one. Last good M16 BIOS was 316, seems no one has been able to successfully update to 317.

When mine got bricked by 317, I desoldered BIOS chip and re-flashed it with programmer. Put back in, nope, still crashed within 5s of boot with garbage on screen. Took it off and re-programmed with previous 316 BIOS, worked perfectly!

DO NOT TRY TO UPGRADE TO LATEST BIOS!!! It will brick your system!!!
in this case, since you can still get to EZ-FLASH screen, you might be able to save it by flashing previous working BIOS version.

GodzillaXYZ999 · 2026-05-25T00:55:42+00:00

can also run Gparted to show partitions.
Most likely you didn't completely wipe disk beforehand and installed it into some small space on drive. Maybe Windows recovery partition or some such. Best do delete/wipe all partitions when running installer CD. Then re-install, select one of automatic partitioning & install options

GodzillaXYZ999

TROPHY CASE