this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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I've been considering using my phone only for tethering, and doing anything on the go on a ultraportable Linux laptop. If anyone is doing this already, I'd love to hear about your experience.
I tether my GOS tablet. I currenly don't use a notebook privately, only a desktop.
You need a generous data plan, or never install system updates but on WiFi.
Do any cell phone plans allow for unlimited Hotspot data? That's my largest issue with doing that, I use more than 50GB every single month.
Yes but they're like $60 a month
Huh
Maybe it's different in other countries, but why would there be a different allowance for tethered/hotspot data?
Surely unlimited means unlimited and it makes no difference whether the ones and zeros go to a phone or something connected to it?
I've never had any problems
I'm working towards something like that. I'm hoping to ultimately drop the smartphone altogether, and I've set my current phone's end of life (2027ish?) as the goal.
I think the other thing that's necessary to keep the same sense of connectedness is a device to receive notifications, and I have an open source smartwatch I want to program for that. I've been working on a notification server too (kind of like Gotify), but at the moment it's a work in progress
I'm no tech expert and I haven't done this for a while so don't know if that change but they were more packet loss/errors (not sure proper terms, not English native). For most files this isn't an issue but was for more sensitive ones like programs/iso...
Battery also suffered more from this used, keeping phone charged while tethering wasn't good due to battery management system. But things could have changed.
Last point is that bad weather does affect cellphone reception.