My friend, David Hare, has fallen on hard times. Since the death of his partner things have taken a turn for the worse. He is now homeless, living in a caravan parked on someones drive, and finding it difficult to get by. He lives on what people donate, or the occasional offer of manual labour work.

Dave (pictured above playing the fiddle) is a clever man - he's created a distribution of linux - available for download here: http://exegnulinux.net/ , so knows his way around a bash shell and the difference between System D and Init. From what I can tell, this is something he is very opinionated about!

In a former life he was a Air conditioning engineer. But now he has found himself in a bad place unable to find his way out. His only connection to the internet is with an old netbook, with a half broken screen. He's can no longer offer any updates to ExeGNU linux .

The best outcome of this fundraiser would be to find an employer in Devon, UK who would offer him a job so he can start to use his technical talents again. However, failing this, a laptop which will allow him to continue updates to his flavour of Linux would be fantastic.

If you can help in anyway by donating towards a new laptop, or if you can offer some employment possibilities his way, it would be fantastic.

Thank you.