Installing software with proxy hotspot from android

This is my first time using Manjaro, and i cant seem to get pamac or the default Software app, or the browser based software store to work. The only way its possible to connect my desktop to the internet is with the PDAnet android app. i set system proxy in the settings menu (im on KDE), and in Firefox network settings. i had this issue on Ubuntu with apt and couldnt figure it out either. setting enviroment variables doesnt affect anything as far as i can tell. With Fedora i can get DNF to work by adding the proxy to the end of its config file, but i dont know where the config file for pamac is or if that is even an appropriate way to go about solving this. I need ALL internet connections to go through 192.168.49.1:8000 on my local network, and certain data like User Agent info and screen size info gets changed or masked to hide tether usage from my cell carrier. Unfortunately home internet is unavailable in my area, Metro by Tmobile and Verizon is the only way to get internet.

The issue is pretty unclear to me - perhaps it could be described better?
You are using an Android device to provide Internet to your computer?
And USB tethering (ethernet connection via the phones internet connection) doesn’t work?
Or via the wireless hotspot function of the device?
If the device is a fairly recent smartphone, either of these should work without extra software.
You simply turn on either one of these and then can use the internet connection that the android device already has.
if your device is a smartphone …

I am using an app on my phone to create a hotspot (usb can be done, but only to one PC at a time) that hides all traffic from my carrier by using wifi direct to turn on the hotspot and changing user agent data to match my phone. The app doesnt support linux, but i got it to work on Fedora. so far on Manjaro, the browser works, but i cant install software at all. Pamac fails to connect, and i have no clue where to even start with setting proxy settings. i set the system wide proxy settings in the KDE settings menu, but that does not make pamac or pacman use the proxy. I cant find anything in the Wiki about installing software behind a proxy, so i dont even know where to start. On fedora KDE i set the system proxy in KDE settings to manual, then added proxy=192.168.49.1:8000 to the end of /etc/dnf/dnf.conf to get the software GUI and CLI working. i tried to find an equivalent configuration file for pamac, but there doesnt seem to be one. its not an emergency or anything, i just want to try manjaro out because it seems cool. EDIT: the app and proxy are necesary because i run out of hotspot data and cant get home internet at all.

My point is:
you don’t need an app for that - it’s a feature every Android phone already has
either USB tethering or wireless hotspot to create the equivalent of a home router to which any number of devices can connect wirelessly

first: the traffic is there in any case, no way to “hide” that fact :wink:

Why you’d need or even want to change user agent data is totally beyond me
(with https, ssh and tls and such …)

the user agent thing is because Tmobile monitors that (supposedly) to determine is the traffic originated from my phone or not. im out of regular hotspot data, and thats the only way to get around them blocking other connections.

supposedly is likely the operative word here

But I have heard about some weird practices of mobile internet providers in the US of A

What I wonder is:
how would anyone know or monitor that
and enforce some policy based upon it?

I don’t know.
I never cared - even when similar terms and conditions where present here, back in the days.
But in those days, the volume of mobile internet was very small and even a small volume very expensive.

Today I currently have 7GB which I can never use just using my phone. For ~$15
… all included in my plan of unlimited national phone calls
And that’s not even cheap …

So:
whenever I need internet and don’t have it otherwise - I use my phones wireless hotspot or USB tether it

It’s probably a problem confined to a specific country and how the mobile carriers are allowed to operate there.
I’m guessing US of A

and I don’t know whether that is an actual problem

T-mobile certainly can’t do this here.

and re the actual question:
I do not know how to set up or use that proxy software that you want to use to circumvent whatever needs circumventing.

This doesn’t work because pamac will most likely contact HTTPS servers. These connections are encrypted and can’t be modified from your phone (which would be a man-in-the-middle attack).

I’m not sure I understand why this is needed and I’ve not tried & tested this but there is a way to get pacman to use a proxy so it seems an option to explore.

Info how to set up the variables: Proxy server - ArchWiki

If https is no option there are http mirrors on https://repo.manjaro.org/, see Pacman-mirrors - Manjaro how to set that up.

Could @AZSU420 explain or link the providers info so this (for us privileged with almost unlimited data acces) traffic management becomes clear to us?

That would be helpful in order to begin to understand the issue.

In remember times when it was against the TOS of specific ISP to use tethering. They had and probably still have some kind of detection mechanism to find out if you’re tethering or not.

Here, allegedly, they go the absolute stupid way and look for the User Agent in the requests. (What about HTTPS? What about UDP or any other protocol than HTTP? Can you even operate a phone without HTTPS?)

Maybe you could try a VPN?

On Android, IP can be configured through the standard settings or using programs.

Once pamac is installed, you have several different options for using it.