The hardware should theoretically be fine. kexec calls "shutdown" prior to executing the new kernel and some linux distros use kexec for fast reboots. Additiona

The hardware should theoretically be fine. kexec calls "shutdown" prior to executing the new kernel and some linux distros use kexec for fast reboots. Additionally, you can replace your /sbin/init with a shell script which calls kexec instead of actually calling init, which would probably avoid initializing some hardware altogether. It's actually possible to boot grub4dos via kexec, however it doesn't work out of the box in digital ocean. I'm not sure how to format code on HN so here's a proof-of-concept on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/5jcvG2N9 http://pastebin.com/5jcvG2N9 A kexec bootloader also exists, called petitboot, but I've never used it to boot anything other than linux, though scanning google, it looks like people may have used it to successfully boot FreeBSD on the PS3 or OpenWRT compatible routers. Petitboot can be found here: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/petitboot/petitboot.html https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/petitbo...