BPI-R2: what's the current status?

Hi,

At the moment I’m looking to buy an R2 as replacement for my R1 (end of support of bananian). However, I’m kinda lost in the topics in here about what’s working and what’s not. I expect the device to boot from SD, have working network (all interfaces), switch options (swconfig) and vlan tagging.

The rest (hardware options and stuff) would be nice to have, but are non-essential for me, as I just use it as a wired firewall/router. (won’t even use wifi, as I have 2 APs for that)

I read swconfig working on a kernel, network working on a kernel and sd support in a kernel, but not all in the same kernel. (or did I mis something)

Regards,

T_I

DSA-driver for switch working in 4.14, but here internal wlan is not working yet, with 4.4.70 DSA is not working, but internal wlan :wink:

Good to know, I’d need to use the 4.14 kernel. Any recommendations on the distro. I saw Ubuntu and arch. I’d think that when Ubuntu is working, Debian would work as well. Anybody working on Armbian?

I’ll order mine at the end of this month (after the paycheck arrives). Any recommended sources for eu based customers?

imho nobody is working on armbian

there are also debian-images (i’m using an jessie image, which i have upgraded to stretch)

internal wlan is close to be working :wink:

you mean hardware-sources, right?

from which country do you come from? here in germany there are some sellers like conrad, voelkner, reichel and pollin

Nice to know there is a debian option, would love to use that. (all non-arm devices already are debian)

I’m from The Netherlands, so anywhere in Europe is an option. Conrad overhere only has the R1 on offer. (or had 2 months ago)

Edit: just checked, conrad.nl and conrad.de have only the R1 on offer, I’d prefer to upgrade to R2 now. Importing from China is an option, but I’d prefer to buy it from an EU source, something to do with warranty.

Edit 2: Both vloekner.de and reichelt.de have the P2 in stock, but I can’t find the power supply and a casing. (or does the R1 casing fit the R2 as well?) (Pollin has powersupplies, that helps, but which one to choose, do the R2 and M2 have the same powersupply?)

My power-supply is from reichelt and is linked in my wiki

http://www.fw-web.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en:bpi-r2:hardware#additional_hardware

(also linked on main page)

there is no official case in stock yet. There is a 3d-printer ready object at onshape here in forum. I’m working on a lasercutter-template (not fully ready yet)…it’s on my gdrive (used the 3d-option as source)

Except my lasercutter-file (because not ready yet) all is linked on my wiki-page above)

Mainline Kernel, just cable switch working with R1:

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/3476-bpi-r1-with-new-b53-switch-driver-dsa/?do=findComment&comment=37009

Thanks for the tips, I just went with ali express, as there was a shop that has BPi R2, powersupply, case and heatsinks. I preferred to have 1 shop over eu based. (will see if it was a good or a bad idea)

Armbian dropped support for the R1 board in june, latest kernel will kill the on-board switch, so I went for a new R2. Will keep the R1 for messing around with, after the R2 is up and running.

As it’s my main router, I’m not going to experiment until there is a replacement.

interesting, did you test that with the DSA configuration. You do know that SWCONFIG is obsolete ?

I am planing to compile it myself for the R1. The A20 gets more and more mainline support where R2 is still a mess.

No, I haven’t tested it, that’s what’s reported on the amrbian page you linked. I won’t test it before the R2 is in place. (I can’t do without my router, as it’s crucial for my work/business)

Which problems do you have with support? My 4.14 kernel on github has most things working, also internal wlan works like with 4.4

For debian i added instructions to run a bootstrapped debian 9 in my wiki…

Not one with R2, I have an R1 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

The R1 in the current stage needs 2 minor changes for major improvement

  1. Power inlet - change to barrel jack 4,0 x 1,7mm
  • a small change on the PCB layout and BoM (bill of material)
    
  1. add a resistor - to disable frame forwarding by the switch in the unconfigured/booted state !
  • a small change in the BoM - R1308 with a 2k2 ohm resister
    

et voila you have nice working Switch with SATA.

and 1 bigger improvement for WLAN.

  1. the currenty WLAN module RTL8192 is not worth the silicon. Replace it with: MT5572 wifi-modul
  • a small change in the BoM
  • I don’t know about re-certification - so it could become bigger.

If at least two of the three changes would be done by @noralee & @lionwang they would have two different Routers to sell - and one with the well supported A20.

Well, compare the supported functions of R2 with this table for the A20: https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

Dear Tido and Frank,

Three persons got R2 new version samples, they are Johnny Wednesday, Chwe and Kirill Gara who may feed back their testing result after their vacation then.

Nora

Will after 2 days of testing.

Kernel 4.4.70:

  • Only detect 2 NICS.
  • NIC Missing critical feature like VLAN
  • Wifi in debug
  • BT still issue
  • Sound pending testing
  • Graphic basic support - pending testing of H265 decode

Kernel 4.14.11:

  • NIC Missing critical feature like VLAN
  • Wifi in debug
  • BT still issue
  • Sound missing
  • Graphic missing

as for video in 4.14…you can try to enable

CONFIG_DRM [=m]
CONFIG_DRM_MEDIATEK [=m]

CONFIG_HDMI should be set by this…can’t try HDMI right now

does BT now work like 4.4.70?

  1. Only detect 2 NICS is really not a problem. It should be caused by different software component to modeling the switch hardware between 4.4 and 4.14. Otherwise, somebody else volunteered helping back port to 4.4 base to make driver the same , but that is not a really simple work, much changes on dsa from 4.4 to 4.14.

  2. For audio, you can stop moving on until you get necessary module. It requires codec as I said in Kernel audio module

  3. For mt7530 vlan, it is ready for 4.14 from contribution from mediatek but needs more verification on it. For 4.4, switch has NO standard interface to make configuration , something like swconfig in openwrt/lede. So I guessed it should not be supported in a short time. The right direction is let dsa support move back to 4.4 to share resource across distinct kernel versions.

Vlan+patch from mediatek is based on 4.15. I have modified it and dsa of 4.14.now it compiles,but have not test it yet that it works…maybe someone can help me here…for the 2nics, i will try to fix the failed hunks…

Gary denied porting dsa to 4.4…it’s much work which have not be done if 4.14 is working with same or more functions as 4.4. 4.14 should be the newest lts (current status stable).