[LUAU] how resilient is linux with repeated cold reboots?

[Charles Lockhart]

I'm doing some development on an instrument where communication
between the linux box and the some remote electronics is via this
specialized PCI serial fiber card.  The PCI card really sucks, it's
not exactly a custom board, not exactly a production quality board.
Some PCs won't boot with with the card in, with others there is a
variable degree of flakiness.

The card is built around a Motorola DSP, and as I'm doing development
and testing my code the, the DSP code will freeze up, and the board
seems to freeze up the PCI bus as well, and pretty much stomp the
computer into a state of unnatural stillness, basically it dies a
quick death.

And then I cycle power.  Woohoo!

I have had Linux installs in the past which eventually took the long
sleep from being cold booted too many times, but the newer distros
seem pretty resilient.  Still, the machine is dying and being
restarted many times per day, sometimes many times per hour, as I
tinker with the DSP code on the board trying to fix the problem.

Any idears on how many times I might be able to get away with before
the whole system burns up?

-Charles