Just thought I would pop back here to say I solved it, and after all, it was dead easy !!
On Andriod phone, go to the "Portable Wi-Fi Hospot" bit (it was under "Settings / other" on my phone).
Go to "Configure Wi-Fi hotspot" bit and give it a short "friendly" name (I reckon no gaps and keep it short maybe best).
Then, on that same screen, select a password.(minimum 8 characters) - Don't forget to click "save" !!
Then go back one and turn on the "Portable Wi-Fi hotspot" button.
I did get an error message stating "Tethering error" but I ignored it, clicked ok and proceeded
I turned OFF my "Mobile data" - don't really know why, just to keep it simple and to not risk using large chunks of my data allowance
No go to the Linux laptop's Wi-Fi networks list and look for the name you selected for the hotspot on the phone. (I had to click on "view other networks" to see it)
Enter the password.
Now go back to the phone and use "ES file explorer" (if you don't have that "app" install it = it's good)
Now click on the 3 "burger" lines (top left on my version) and scroll down to "Network" and select "Lan"
Now click on "Scan" (blue banner at bottom of screen).
Assuming you you have set up file sharing on one or more folders on your laptop, you should see the name of your laptop in the form of a "folder".
Just click on that and you can now see the files in the shared folder(s).
Using the facilities offered by ES File Explorer, you can now either view / play or copy files on the phone
I tested it on 3 Android different phones and it worked fine on all of them
Once you have done it a couple of times, it takes less time to set up than it takes to read the above!!
Hope this is of some use to someone sometime
Please note, I am not a Linux expert by any means, I am still learning, but if I can pass on something that has worked for me, I will, but use at your own risk. Plus I am always ready to be corrected by those many helpful folk who ARE experts
). I would like to be able to access my files on the laptop, via my phone.
