PdaNet Alternative Solution

Hello! :blush:

First off I just want to say I am really enjoying Garuda. I'm running the KDE Dragonized Edition and it is stunning. So a huge thank you to the Garuda development community! I can't praise this distro enough.

So here is the issue and forgive me as it does need a little explanation. In the US our mobile carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T etc.) limit our hotspot data. To be clear we are given unlimited data when it is used directly on the device (smartphone, tablet etc.) but when we turn on our hotspot to share that connection with other devices such as this laptop that I'm writing this post on, we are limited to a set amount of GB. Once that limit has been used our carriers throttle the hotspot connection to the point that it's basically useless.

With that foundation in place I'll now mention PdaNet. PdaNet is Windows software that not only allows you to tether your phones data connection to your laptop, but it hides the tethered usage from your carrier so there is no data cap and thus no throttling of the service whatsoever. This allows me to have unlimited data on my laptop using my phones internet connection.

So I am looking for an alternative to PdaNet. I have already gotten a successful connection with easy-tether but it doesn't hide the connection from my carrier and thus it throttles after my 30GB limit. I have read through the arch wiki concerning tethering, with limited success with the other solutions offered on that wiki, but I am aware of it. I've also tried to get PdaNet working on linux without success thus far. I have aslo read through a few threads entirely that I could find on this topic but was unable to find a solution.

All that being said I am ultimately asking for someone to point me in the right direction to either alternative software that can do what PdaNet does, or instructions as to how I might get PdaNet working on Linux. Thank you in advance for any help and again thank you for this distribution. It's awesome.

System:    Kernel: 5.15.5-zen1-1-zen x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/@/boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen root=UUID=777f9839-8527-45e5-a799-12bc2fcafea3
rw rootflags=subvol=@ quiet
cryptdevice=UUID=b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170:luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170
root=/dev/mapper/luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170 splash rd.udev.log_priority=3
vt.global_cursor_default=0 systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=1
resume=/dev/mapper/luks-5f2561d3-4c8b-420a-affa-8fc1431a393e loglevel=3
Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.23.4 tk: Qt 5.15.2 info: latte-dock wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM
Distro: Garuda Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: LENOVO product: 81EM v: Lenovo ideapad FLEX 6-14IKB
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 31 v: Lenovo ideapad FLEX 6-14IKB
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO
v: 7QCN46WW date: 11/26/2020
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 13.6 Wh (33.0%) condition: 41.2/45.5 Wh (90.6%) volts: 7.2 min: 7.7
model: CPT-COS L17C4PB0 type: Li-poly serial: <filter> status: Discharging
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-8250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake note: check
family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: A (10) microcode: EA cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
L3: 6 MiB
flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 28800
Speed: 870 MHz min/max: 400/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 864 3: 859 4: 900 5: 892
6: 896 7: 900 8: 900
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2
mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0
chip-ID: 8086:5917 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:4
chip-ID: 13d3:56b2 class-ID: 0e02
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.21.1.1 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: i915
note: n/a (using device driver) display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 157 size: 310x170mm (12.2x6.7") diag: 354mm (13.9")
Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
alternate: snd_soc_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d71 class-ID: 0403
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.5-zen1-1-zen running: yes
Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8822BE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi adapter vendor: Lenovo ThinkPad E595
driver: rtw_8822be v: N/A modules: rtw88_8822be port: 3000 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:b822
class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth: Device-1: Realtek RTL8822BE Bluetooth 4.2 Adapter type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-7:3
chip-ID: 0bda:b023 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
Report: bt-adapter ID: hci0 rfk-id: 9 state: up address: <filter>
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 10.3 GiB (8.6%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLW128HEGR-000L2 size: 119.24 GiB
block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter>
rev: 4L1QCXB7 temp: 30.9 C scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 110.14 GiB size: 110.14 GiB (100.00%) used: 10.29 GiB (9.3%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 mapped: luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170
ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 720 KiB (0.2%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
ID-3: /home raw-size: 110.14 GiB size: 110.14 GiB (100.00%) used: 10.29 GiB (9.3%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 mapped: luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170
ID-4: /var/log raw-size: 110.14 GiB size: 110.14 GiB (100.00%) used: 10.29 GiB (9.3%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 mapped: luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170
ID-5: /var/tmp raw-size: 110.14 GiB size: 110.14 GiB (100.00%) used: 10.29 GiB (9.3%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 mapped: luks-b352ff58-d331-43a2-bda9-8419d23cb170
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 133 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 7.55 GiB used: 15.4 MiB (0.2%) priority: 100 dev: /dev/zram0
ID-2: swap-2 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/dm-1
maj-min: 254:1 mapped: luks-5f2561d3-4c8b-420a-affa-8fc1431a393e
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C pch: 38.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:      Processes: 253 Uptime: 1d 16h 1m wakeups: 20 Memory: 7.55 GiB used: 3.73 GiB (49.3%)
Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 11.1.0 clang: 13.0.0 Packages:
pacman: 1188 lib: 321 Shell: fish v: 3.3.1 default: Bash v: 5.1.12 running-in: konsole
inxi: 3.3.09

Welcome to the forum.

First search hit:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-do-i-get-pdanet-to-connect-to-linux

PdaNet is a smartphone application that enables mobile phones to tether to a computer. Tethering enable the computer to access the Internet with data from a cellphone signal. PdaNet has applications for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows and Palm. It also is compatible with all three major operating systems: Windows, Macintosh and Linux. To use PdaNet with Linux, both the computer and phone must be Bluetooth compatible.

1 Like

Hi there, welcome to the community. I believe that what you are trying to achieve is completely illegal and violets the terms of your ISP. We do not promote doing such things on our forums.

I hope you understand.

3 Likes

My bad, I did not realize this was a violation of the TOS (terms of service) with all phone carriers. As such, I will unfortunately be required to close this thread (as these kinds of threads violate our TOS as well).

Apologies.

3 Likes