Dissapointment continues

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
23

Because hardware itself is capable to wifi7 standards (at the time of design -wifi 7 specs were not completely finished)…that means nothing about software support.

There was a internal wifi-board (basicly be19) when public sale of base R4,but there are some problems with heat and stability. So BPI choosing to redesign the wifi board as BE14 which has different frontends not supported by the upstreamed firmware yet. MTK is about to upstream the Patches and firmware,but it takes some time,so we need to do it manually and using a testing firmware which may not support all features.

BPI boards are development Boards and no ready to use devices.

The 2 patches are in the tree i linked,but as i patch kernel “version” (drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76) and openwrt clones standalone mt76 instead (GitHub - openwrt/mt76: mac80211 driver for MediaTek MT76x0e, MT76x2e, MT7603, MT7615, MT7628 and MT7688) you have to remove path in the patch file and put in the right folder (afaik packages/mt76).

I’no openwrt dev too,i work against mainline kernel and use debian as rootfs.

My linked thread has 2 patches for wifi…one is the code patch for mt76 and one adds the testing firmware to source tree

Currently i have too less time to get things working, i have made all public so far,but cannot do a basic step-by-step guide as some parts are changing and hold this all in actual state requires much time. My repos creating ready to use debian/ubuntu images with the latest version of my kernel,but needs a bit configuration…my state is that i have all interfaces up,but not yet started hostapd on all to get working wifi connection.

Most users want openwrt,but this also takes time and is limited to licensing of the firmware added…as there is no official one it cannot be added to openwrt master.

24

In general, are MTK or someone else going to release an open version of the be14 driver? For me, official firmware from the openwrt website is a kind of standard (fast, clean). My attempts to build my firmware with support for the packages I need on the 6.6.50 kernel with be14 support cause headaches and frustration, because I just compiled the firmware from the danpawlik repository, and its wifi also does not work. Please explain in more detail, where should patches for be14 be placed? At what stage? What needs to be done for makeconfig to detect these patches

25

MTK will release it when it’s ready which I hope is soon

26

In this mounth? Open driver?

27

Its the fw and driver will be open source ofc I’m not sure when tho

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It’s not about you Marazm, it’s about the banana team and especially about sinovoip bpi team Leader.

I bought it from the sinovoip bpi team Leader store.

these are the links and it says wifi 7 in openwrt

https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860341878.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.20.21ef194dofgqlo&gatewayAdapt=glo2esp

Banana Pi BPI-R4 Suit with Cases MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) quad-core Arm Corex-A73 4GB DDR4 8GB eMMC Openwrt Router Board

and here is the module that I also bought from the

https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005007223308239.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.21ef194dofgqlo&gatewayAdapt=glo2esp

Banana Pi BPI-R4-NIC-BE14 wifi7 module, accessories for BPI-R4.

where is the openwrt that sells the same one that is the sinovoip bpi team Leader.

why doesn’t he give us an explanation?

If mediatek makes the be14000 module, they would also sell you the drivers, in the wiki it is announced, openwrt,debain .ubuntu, it turns out that none of the 3 are prepared for wifi7.

either the banana team has not been up to par, or there is something that we are missing.

This is announced from June 1, 23 sinovoip bpi team Leader

This is announced on the wiki.

MediaTek MT7988 (Filogic 880) Mediatek Filogic 880. The 36Gbps Wi-Fi 7 access point/router/gateway platform delivers the fastest and most reliable connection experience.

The MediaTek MT7988A is a world-leading network processing platform for reliable, high-performance network experiences in both wired and wireless applications. The MT7988A features a wide array of connection interfaces including 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2 USB-GMII interfaces, 4 PCIe interfaces, and 2 USB 3.2-in-1 ports.

The MT7988A also enables seamless tri-band Wi-Fi 7 connectivity of 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz, with its Wi-Fi 7 companion chip featuring 320MHz bandwidth, 4096-QAM, MLO, MRU, and AFC.

To meet the need for rapidly evolving tunneling applications, the MT7988A comes with the MediaTek Tunnel Offload Processor System (TOPS), which facilitates the processing of a wide range of tunneling protocols. The MT7988A optimizes network performance with MediaTek TOPS’s exquisitely tuned ISA, and is dedicated to elevating network offload performance to a higher level.

Key Features MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) Quad-core Arm Corex-A73 Processor, 1.8GHz 4GB DDR4 8GB eMMC Flash Memory 128MB SPI-NAND Flash Memory Micro SD Card Slot 2x 10GbE SFP Slots (Optional 1x 10GbE SFP Slot and 1x 2.5GbE PHY Slot Integrated on SOC. NOTE: Hardware modification required) 4x Gbe Network Ports 1x USB 3.2 Slot 1x M.2 KEY-B Slot with USB3.2/PCIe3.0 Interface for 5G 1x M.2 KEY-M Slot with 1-Lane PCIe3.0 Interface for NVME SSD 2x miniPCIe Slot with 2-Lane PCIe3.0 Interface for Wi-Fi 7 NIC (Network Interface Card) Header 26 PIN GPIO for expanding application Customizable POE function (current version does not support POE function) Application address Internet service router Wifi 7 wireless router 4G/5G wireless router Wireless repeater Home security gateway Home automation NAS device Networking and communication applications

why don’t we have openwrt at least that is what they sell in their aliexpress store, a working firmware.

in his store he makes it very clear Banana Pi - MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) Smart Router Board, Quad-Core, Arm BPI-R4, 4GB, DDR4, 8GB, eMMC, Openwrt Compatible

where is at least the firmware compatible with openwrt, why is he selling us the wifi 7 module advertised in his store also Banana Pi BPI-R4-NIC-BE14 wifi7 module, accessories for BPI-R4

We would like an explanation from the Sinovoip BPI Team Leader, as to why he sells something that is not true.

I think he should be the one to give us the explanation.

If you look at the description on the Aliexpress page, you will see the wonders that the wifi module speaks of, the 4G and 5G module, the wifi7 that it has, and above all that it says Openwrt Router Board in its sales presentation of the router, since now it sells everything together: the wifi7 module, antennas, box, everything except the power supply in the most expensive kit that it has.

A year and 3 months later, they don’t even have a working openwrt as advertised on their store.

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So if you choose to spend less money on hardware, by buying a development board, then I think you shouldn’t complain it is a development board…

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Uhm mediatek is the one to provide the drivers, production ready drivers can’t just be released like that, it has to go through certifications and testing

Also just because something says compatible doesn’t mean it comes with it or is working yet

31

Here is a thought:

Instead of spending your time on writing these large negative comments, please help and contribute to the community and help developing. You are enjoying open-source which depends on this kind of contributions.

3 Likes
32

Please this is addressed to the leader of the sinovoip bpi team, who after a year and 3 months, is supposed to have the drivers and is capable of doing everything he advertises in his store in his description.

All he is doing is profiting from something that is not real, he should give an explanation of the creator and that he says it is compatible with openwrt, so prove that it is and give us an image with the latest kernel.

If he or his team is not prepared to give us an openwrt with the latest bootloader and wifi 7 as advertised on aliexpress, he should give the drivers to the openwrt community, make it truly open source, then we will have openwrt.

I await your reply sinovoip bpi

33

This is ridiculous you all knew what you’re getting into and you’re complaining it’s dev board that’s supported by the community, it did not claim at any point to come with the software, and the drivers are to be released by mediatek not sinovoip

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I think you got excited buying the BPI-R4 with the WiFi 7 module thinking that everything would work without any problems, but the reality is that it still needs half a year to a year of driver development and the reason it takes so long is simple, is that the drivers are “open source” and “free”, which means there is no money involved (maybe some “hardware” donations to the maintainers and developers of open source drivers), so companies like MediaTek have no motivation or desire to quickly support anything related to WiFi 7, MLO, RSS/LRO, etc., this always happens with “open source” stuff and it’s not new, because for companies open source (free) means losses.

If you feel scammed and don’t want to wait for MediaTek to do their job and release working open source drivers (hopefully without any issues), I think you should return the BPI-R4 and the WiFi 7 module and buy the Banana Pi BPI-R3, which is a “plug and play” WiFi 6 router that works perfectly and you don’t need to do any juggling to make it work like the BPI-R4, I’m sure you will be satisfied.

The hardware is already there, but the “open source” software/drivers are missing and it seems that MediaTek doesn’t even give it importance or priority.

@Francisco @spyro

35

Good morning, I’m still waiting for the answer from Sinovoip BPI Team Leader and he knows very well why.

SpectreDev@ I’m answering you out of politeness, if he hadn’t had the drivers he would have been unable to do anything, they were given to him by mediatek when he bought it, the product’s board is made especially for banana pir r4

Thanks@, I’m answering you out of politeness, regarding the drivers in the wiki, if you notice, it says it very clearly.

OpenWRT MTK MP3.1 wifi SDK or MT76 wifi driver for BE14000 Wifi Card.

MTK vendor’s MP3.1 wifi driver sourcecode can’t be open source. only release Image.

OpenWRT MTK MP4.0 wifi SDK wifi driver for BE14000 Wifi Card.

MTK vendor’s MP4.0 wifi driver sourcecode can’t be open source. only release Image.

As you can see, there is very little open source code in these images, if I had donated them to the openwrt community and its developers I would have done a decent job and not the images that are on the wiki.

I repeat, I am still waiting for the Sinovoip BPI Team Leader’s answer, or will I need to take out all the messages I have with him on Aliexpress?

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t know if life will give me the half year or year that is needed to be able to see the great work of the banana team, I hope it gives it to me and I can eat my words and go out again to thank the banana team, but I am sure that if I had donated the drivers that it has to the openwrt community, surely if I had done it we would already have openwrt wifi 7, their team is the one that has not given a damn even with the first images of the wiki…

Another thing is that thanks to what I worked on in life, I already have wifi7 at home but not openwrt, they are 10gb wifi 7 routers and mesh with 2 other wifi7 routers.

Buy Banana Pi BPI-R3, there are better openwrt wifi 6 routers than that one that sell for the price they sell it for, and at half the price

I want him to tell me what you have told me Thanks@, but that it is the words of his mouth and not the messages I have from aliexpress that are very different, and he made me waste my time for 3 days.

And more if you have seen the aliexpress page and its description, you will see that what they are looking for is economically, without having anything to offer the community and less to the one who buys it.

I await your response Sinovoip BPI Team Leader

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I will not write any more messages, I will only respond if the Sinovoip BPI Team Leader does.

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They are proof of concept drivers not production ready drivers, which has to be released by MediaTek, and these drivers have to go through licensing and verification and extensive testing before they get released, you guys need to calm down and have some patience like the rest of us and wait

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But there are very few WiFi 6/7 routers that have SFP ports and that are supported in OpenWrt (you can count them on your fingers).

I’m on your side, but I think the real culprits of the driver problems are the lazy people working at MediaTek, but as SinoVoip is the one selling the WiFi 7 modules using MediaTek chips, they only have themselves to blame for the current situation, since SinoVoip as chip buyer doesn’t tell MediaTek to force their lazy people to work on “open source” drivers, not only WiFi drivers but also MLO, RSS/LRO, TOPS, EIP-197, etc… because their products depend on that and not on garbage “proprietary drivers” that are useless.

I think they don’t do it for fear of losing that partner (cheap chips).

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39

what?! Wifi 7 and be14 works fine although slow! unsure what this ranting is about … 5g (radio1) works great at the level of top end cards

40

Uh, my first post here but i’d like to repeat what others have said.

This is a development kit, comprised of various components by various manufacturers. There’s BE19 module by AsiaRF that supposedly is supported. Whom are you going to blame for not giving you the source code? If you don’t want to bother with this - go buy a Linksys or Zyxel or TP-Link router, with fully closed down software, whatever performance they have achieved there, with possibility of firmware updates to be dropped in 6 months time, and probably costing £100 more than this kit.

Keeping this thought in mind, so far Sinovoip or whoever developed that version of firmware have provided you with the complete solution, a bit janky, more difficult to set up, but functional nevertheless. Did you get hardware? yes. Did you get compatible firmware that gives you the ability to use Wifi 7? Yes. Want it to make more stable? pick up the flag and fix it yourself. OpenWRT and BPI-R4 together with that wifi7 card is a DIY project. As someone said - instead of ranting - fix it yourself. If not - i’m pretty sure the seller will be happy to take the product back, refund it and you can go buy whatever router there is - go for TP Link Archer - they have wifi7 routers for sale now.

Even getting the adapter to work on your PC for Wifi 7 is a puzzle nowadays - you have 2 and a half working adapters, with severe limitations on supported platforms. Seriously.

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41

Full agree with you, it’s a development board was never sold as a end consumer product

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I don’t understand something about this modern world, why would MTK release a closed version of the driver if its final version will be open?

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