I really really need the bluetooth to work as I have a commercial project where I could use the R2 board. However after looking at githup it seams link only very very little work is going on to get the board flying. Looking back this forum I see that very little progress has been done since last year.
I wonder what the future looks like for the project? Is it prioritized? Will it reach a useful state where both Wifi and Bt is stable?
Sorry for my “negative” post, but I need to know if I can “count” on using the board for a project or not.
IMHO support for the MT7623 in general looks pretty good as almost all drivers have made it into mainline Linux by now. They may need to mature a little more, but MT7623 drivers aren’t tied to this product alone. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether the BPI-R2 in particular sees a lot of development - even though I think it does!
If you are looking for a platform with multiple fast Ethernet ports, there isn’t anything comparable right now.
As per my experience with BPI-R2 it is long way to go and become a completely working board. Whenever we try to use this board for project, we have back foot. Because the important peripherals are like I2C/SPI/WIFI/BT/ETHERNET are not properly working or atleast not stable. However, there are good people like @frank-w putting lot of effort to make it work one by one. But I am seeing that there are many miscommunication here to collect the fixes. Ex: One said SPI is working, but not working when we tried. I believe, @sinovoip team gather the right fixes properly at one place and make sure to deliver one working kernel to avoid any confusion.
Well, right now I am using RPI ZERO board on top of BPI-R2 and interface all the external peripherals with RPI Zero and forward the sensors datas into BPI-R2 by WIFI. You see how shame it is even BPI-R2 has everything in terms of marketing level, but nothing useful so far. Hope the BPI-R2 will be soon ready for industrial development purpose.
We will try to improve the stability of both WIFI and BT in kernel 4.4, also if you’re available, please work with us together to make this product to be better.
Here is the source code of WIFI and BT driver i: BPI-R2-bsp/linux-mt/drivers/misc/mediatek/connectivity
We’re working on kernel 4.4, try to make major peripherals to be stable, but looks like the WIFI AP, BT and SPI are still not fine so far, so this is our goal in the next few weeks.
Sorry to say, but in my opinion only Garywang is working on it.
Sometimes someone from BPI.
That’s a shame, because the BPI R2 has a lot to offer on paper,
but lot of things doesn’t work;
And I do not require to much - just Openwrt and some Linux (either debian or ubuntu …) with full features working.
And I will switch to other brand which is no powerful but fully supported (eg. OrangePI or even X86 miniitx)
I’m working on the display stuff now, and will add support (HDMI) to mainline kernel v4.17.
“I2C/SPI/ETHERNET” works fine for me (v4.4 or latest kernel version) at least. I didn’t add any bug fixes for those peripherals but just added proper descriptions in DTS for my slave devices.
The MT7530 switch framework (DSA) is not supported on versions of the kernel before v4.12, but we’ve already backported to v4.4 now. Moreover, we will fix dual MAC/ vlan issue and release these updated drivers to @sinovoip team.
I can connect to the SPI panel (ili9225) and can play the heavy metal music through my WM8960 codec daughter board which is connected with I2C interface and I2S bus.
I know on-board WIFI/BT is unstable =(. AFAICT, I don’t encourage to use MT6625 If you want to take R2 as an AP-router. Alternatively, I will suggest to buy an external cards.
hi man, there are many nice guys who are willing to help this project to work better，helping this community work better，so please don’t lose confidence.
reference manual in above link is equal to programming guide which includes register descriptions and datasheet is for HW RD to know the pin definition for PCB layout, thanks.
because so far, everything I tried to do with that board is a failure… I recognize I have high expectation from it. because has wrote Maciek Szelągowski,
BPI R2 has a lot to offer on paper
I think it would be a better choice to support ubuntu server than ubuntu with a desktop environment, like mate… Asking the community to help is nice, but I’m sure you understand that people who buy that device, expect to use it, not to deal with hardware partially supported…
I can accept people telling me I’m just an idiot and I don’t know how to use it. Alright then, give me any linux well supported, I will do the rest… like I do with some other fruit pi…
