I suppose router manufacturers and ISP’s won’t like my questions…
I’m a happy owner of a Librem 15 and I’m thinking about pre-ordering a Librem 5 phone, but not being able to tether or use it as a modem would be a deal-breaker. I’m a bit surprised there is nothing in the FAQ about it. Anybody?
Technically the librem 5 will definitely be able to tether the internet. Gnome Supports this via the hotsport feature and as the librem will use gnome this should be available there. You can try it with your librem 15. Go to settings Wifi, click on the hamburger menu in the upper right an select “Turn On WiFi-Hotsport…”. Now on an other device like your phone you should see a hotsport with the name of your librem 15. This hotsport share any internet connection the librem 15 has. In this test this probably would be none, but i for example have a 3G modem in my notebook an could share this connection this way. I expect that the same will be possible on the librem 5.
@ahartman to your four questions:
But it probably will be a USB-C 3.1 port which can handle charging and data at the same time. So your Librem 15 charges the phone. USB-C has a Power Delivery mode which is capable of up to 100W which is sufficent for even big notebooks. I’m not sure which quick charge futures purism implements on the librem 5 and what the USB(-C) ports of the Librem 15 can deliver but it should deferentially be enough to charge a phone at least slowly while tethering. But speaking of this i don’t know if PureOS / Gnome Supports cabled tethering out of the box with a nice GUI. But technically this shouldn’t be that hard. So might not be available on release but will most likely be available.
If you meant using the librem 5 as a (semi) sationary modem i think you would need ethernet ports + power supply. In this case i would suggest a powered USB hub for charging an multiple otg devices such as usb ethernet adapters. Or if it should work just as a wifi router this should be possible just out of the box.
I’m not sure I understand you exactly, and I have no sim card in my Librem 15. What I want to do is the same thing I’m doing with my Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4 phone right now, i.e. I have a regular sim card in it and, when I turn on the phone’s hotspot feature, my desktop computer connects to it just like any wifi network. Can somebody confirm this will be possible with the Librem 5 when it is released in January?
Hi,
let’s see:
Items 1 & 2 can be solved. The Wifi will be AP capable so you can attach other devices to it. The base OS is Linux and you will of course be able to configure things like iptables for firewalling.
Number 3, replacing the battery is pretty high on our priority list for the case design. We can not 100% assure this yet nor say now how this will be possible. But we definitely want that users can replace their batteries - but you may need a screw driver for doing so. But there will definitely be no parts that are glued into the case that would need to be removed before replacing the battery.
Item 4 will pretty sure not happen. We almost have no space left on the side of the device for another plug 
Cheers
nicole
Yeah i’m pretty sure that will work.
My instructions were the other way around, because the librem 5 will have pretty much the same Settings app as PureOS as its the same OS. So expect to do pretty much all the things you can achieve easily on your librem notebook software wise. Most things won’t be adopted to the small screen and there will be not X11 server i think so there also apps which does not work but most Gnome GTK3 apps should work i think.
It’s also the other way around. If you would put a LTE card and a sim in your notebook you will be probably be able to use the new caller app developed for the phone on you librem 15 an make a phone call. So if in doubt what will be possible on the phone lock how easy it is achievable on a linux desktop with free software an how much adoption the UI would need. Then you can guess how likely this will be available on the librem 5. WiFi hotspot (tethering) is a feature of gnome built into the settings and as purism has to adopt the settings it will really likely be there.
I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble understanding what you and @ramnasko mean. I’m new here, so please forgive me if my question seems stupid. I don’t know what the abbreviation “AP” stands for. I’ve been using Linux on different machines for the past 20 years, so that’s not the issue. Neither is my Librem 15 laptop.
What I would like confirmed by somebody who works for Purism is this: Will it or will it not be possible to use the Librem 5 for tethering when it is released? I.e. will it be able to function as a modem using a sim card from a regular Internet Service Provider?
AP stands for access point. Which means the librem 5 can use its wifi card to act as a hotspot/access point sharing its mobile data contention from the modem. So the hardware is capable as well as the software should be as i explained. Sorry for over complicating things.
And nicole.faerber is working for purism.
Thank you. Maybe it would good to mention the tethering capability in the FAQ or somewhere. I wasn’t able to easily find the information when I tried looking.
I avoid using wi-fi, am using usb tethering exclusively
Currently i have a cheap Android smartphone (Xiaomi Redmi 4x)
Once smartphone is connected to the desktop via usb cable
It takes 2 clicks / 3 seconds - to set the smartphone for usb tethering
and it works flawless 100% of the time