Banana Pi BPI-R2 Open Source smart router with MTK 7623N design

[bpi-r2]

Faster, China! Too long...

[oueirehoahttb]

there is the picture function diagram from ASIARF & Shenzhen Gainstrong Technology Co., Ltd

i edited it for our BPI-R2

correct me if i'm wrong, i just want to cleanly understand.

As i said, i wanna use BPI-R2 like a real AP, so i thing MT7623A is better.

[moore]

mt7623n supports hdmi, GPU to be a SBC (single board computer) and can use TRGMII and RGMII interface to connect to mt7530 gigabit switch,so it is better than mt7623a.

in addition, I found many upstream activities in past months, including IR, 7530 DSA, I2S, PWM, pcie, DTS... etc. it is a good news for us

[hdesa]

Is this available for sale yet?

[sinovoip]

next month. will public sale.

[oueirehoahttb]

Can you show us some picture of hardware v2.0 and MT7615 mini pci-e card. Price for them?

[fleshslesh]

Hello all.

Introduction begin I'm orange pi user so I've bought an Orange pi plus. I felt wondered at its abilities such as Gigabit Lan, mali400, DVFS, shutdown and reset buttons and other good things. But something gone wrong during the testing. Turned out that Gigabit Lan is connected thru USB2.0 (400Mb/s), mali400 has NO driver on SUPPORTED OS based on Linux, Hardware H265 video decoding wasn't provided (H3 SoC supports it of course). DVFS does'nt work on little frequencies (There is some hiddend DVFS with higher priority). The board buttons are not programmed.

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That is not a H3 computer that supports linux or Gigabit Lan (same success is to solder butterfly knife there - still knife but useless). What we (OPI buyers) get is deception. Introduction end

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I really hope you making product that meet its description. I want to buy it. So please let us buy your product - show us it's performance

• show us boot logs,
• show us SATA performance numbers,
• show us Gigabit Ethernet performance numbers,
• show us how the switch can be configured,
• show us NAT throughput with simple and complex firewall settings
• show us OpenVPN and IPSec encryption throughput numbers

• show us Mali work on linux
• show us hardware video decoding H264 and H265 on linux
• show us power consumption at different run levels
• show us working of programmed buttons

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Otherwise Your product does not costs its parts, ICs. I dont want buy Jet engine on horse cart for price of jet liner, in this case price must meet its abilities - price of horse cart.

Thank you.

[charles]

Orange pi plus. I felt wondered at its abilities such as Gigabit Lan, mali400, DVFS, shutdown and reset buttons and other good things. But something gone wrong during the testing. Turned out that Gigabit Lan is connected thru USB2.0 (400Mb/s), mali400 has NO driver on SUPPORTED OS based on Linux, Hardware H265 video decoding wasn't provided (H3 SoC supports it of course). DVFS does'nt work on little frequencies (There is some hiddend DVFS with higher priority). The board buttons are not programmed.

It seems you tried the wrong OS images? Everything is working when you use 'Ubuntu Desktop' from here: https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-plus/ (most users stopped using the 'official' OS images for their Bananas and Oranges long ago)

[fleshslesh]

Thank you for trying to help me, Charles. Directly from your link: Mainline kernel images (all boards) (next/dev branches)

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• No Mali drivers
• No hardware accelerated video decoding
• schedutil CPU governor may cause clicks and pops on audio output – change(d) to ondemand to work around this issue

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Really I did not use this image, There may work DVFS and board buttons. I guess that is not OPI developer's work.

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But the main problems are still relevant:

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• theoretically maximum speed of Gigabit Ethernet is about 50MB/s
• no mali drivers
• no hardware H265 decoding
• theoretically maximum speed of SATA is usb2.0 speed same as ethernet fail

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So no any software will be able to fix Gigabit Ethernet and SATA connection thru USB2.0.

I hope Banana Pi developers will not do such scam.

[charles]

Directly from your link: Mainline kernel images

Yes, you're using still the wrong image as already said. Choose "Ubuntu desktop – legacy kernel" and you're done. Gigabit Ethernet is fast but SATA is slow since it's not SATA but GL830. Start reading from 'Beware' here: http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS#Requirements_.2F_which_device_to_choose

I hope Banana Pi developers will not do such scam.

They did, look at BPI M3: same slow/defective GL830.

[naushit]

Can you please provide target date and price?

[sinovoip]

end of this month will public sale .and price is about 85 USD

[sinovoip]

Banana pi BPI-R2 run ubuntu linux with kernel 4.4.59 test

[charles]

Unbelievable. Instead of showing anything relevant (boot log, at least some performance numbers for Ethernet and SATA or any other important stuff) you show a boring video without SATA/PCIe connected and a terminal with just a ping running.

Do you really call this a 'test'? Where are the kernel sources? Where is schematics? You don't have them right? Even the BLOBs you got from MTK are still outdated (4.4.43-BPI-R2-Kernel.tgz)

This will gonna be the same fiasco clusterfuck as with R1 in the beginning.

[renard]

Haters gonna hate. What is the "fiasco" with r1? Works well for me, an issue with switching "during boot" is as paranoid as aliens attack for use cases of this device (home, smb, small branch router/non critical server/pbx) )) SATA performance? Really? I don't think putting the production database here will be the best practice or what else use case do plan and care for SATA performance? 2sinvoip - good job, use several r1, waiting eagerly for an updated version.

[charles]

waiting eagerly for an updated version

For anyone else making the same mistake: The R2 is NOT an upgrade but an entirely different product backed by a different SoC manufacturer (MTK and not Allwinner) and backed by a different developer community (this time NONE vs. linux-sunxi community before).

It took Sinovoip a year to release schematics for R1 while at the same time a lot of stuff simply did not work at all.

• They didn't turn on SATA power, no disk was spinning up. Since no schematic were available it was a hard time for community members to do their job, reverse engineer the power scheme and come up with the necessary fix. The forum where all this work happened has been shut down (guess why) but fortunately it's archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20150810090335/http://bananapi.com:80/index.php/forum/general/391-why-the-sata-disk-doesnt-work-on-bpi-r1?start=6#1262
• The network switch didn't work at all, again all the work done by community members (backporting the necessary stuff from OpenWRT, adopting changes): http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-10732-1-1.html
• Not a single Linux OS image worked in the beginning (they provided just an Android!)
• Even documentation had to been done by community members: http://web.archive.org/web/20151229100016/http://www.bananapi.com/index.php/forum/general/609-manual-for-bpi-r1-setup-thank-tido-do-this-working

And now two and a half years later 3 community projects included all the knowledge and fixes (Bananian, Armbian and David Bentham's OpenWRT) but the whole initial try&error show has been forgotten and people laugh about users that went through this unbelievable situation back then and have a reason to ask for schematics (without it you're more or less lost when dealing with hardware issues) and ask for sources (without it you're more or less lost to dealing with software issues).

Good luck to anyone happy with a closed source product (no schematics, no sources) without any developer community around! Keep in mind: community fixed ALL issues with R1 back then, Sinovoip did nothing to help.

[renard]

Which software do you run on your R1?

For the moment Raspbian * -fw(iptables)/nat/switch/ap(hostapd) * -ipsec site to site and client vpn(libreswan) * -pbx(asterisk) with usb gsm dongle(chan_dongle) * -some "smart home" self made gpio software * -video recording from IP cameras (yet only implementing, even in my most budget solution already ordered several external usb SATA bays with external power for ~15 bucks per slot, even had no thoughts of using internal sata - 2.5 inch TB+ are more expansive then 3.5 and latest need 12v anyway, one hdd is definitely not enough for most reliable persistence task and you will definitely not use fast 2.5 ssd on on-board port at least maybe some big data lab...).

community fixed ALL issues with R1 back then, Sinovoip did nothing to help.

I thought that why we have the community and hardware manufactures (both low (Allwinner/MTK) and high (Sinovoip) levels). Actually I had no major unresolved issues with the configuration above (at least those I know about) and I think it is more then enough for hw costs. We may also blame the distributor for not contributing. Reverse engineering and closed schematic is crap, yet we see the fact - r1 exists and works...

Just IMHO, maybe I am wrong, you seems like an experienced guy in sbc just don't understand such hate for Sinovoip

[oueirehoahttb]

I don't need any test video R2 is running Linux. If i want a mini ARM PC, i will buy another board. I need you show me how this work as AP mode runs OpenWrt/LEDE firmware, is it OK?

[renard]

Which kernel?

3.4.112-sun7i

Welcome to current R2 situation

It is not yet released. So if I understand you correct - it was totally the same situation with R1 and in several years we now have a perfect home router/server with only some geek problems like no VLAN port mapping during reboot and slow onboard SATA which nobody use anyway.

Why so many haters in this community. If you aim using OpenWrt firmware why bothering waiting R2 - you can use R1 or any other Asus or whatever.

[charles]

I need you show me how this work as AP mode runs OpenWrt/LEDE firmware, is it OK?

They can't even provide boot logs so how should they show you any functionality besides a ping and usless desktop environments?

• Have you seen a single time a wifi antenna connected to this board?
• Have you seen on any picture Ethernet cables connected to both the WAN port and one of the switch ports?
• Aren't you worried that on the pictures at the top of this thread not two Ethernet cables are connected to this board and no wifi antenna but there's an USB wifi dongle inserted (they 'test' their board without using its core functionality)?

If you know these guys a bit longer you know that they haven't the slightest problem to sell unfinished products with 100% broken software. That's why it is so important to make people aware and force SinoVoip to show boot logs (they can't since dmesg will still show TONS OF ERRORS proving that software isn't working properly), release kernel sources (they can't since they did not pay/sign the MTK NDA so they have no sources) and release schematics to check for the usual hardware flaws these guys introduce each time they release a new board.

But potential customers are happy to listen to the same marketing chitchat over and over again.