1) How to install Debian or Ubuntu on HDD or SSD (which will be plugged into SATA port).
2) And how to boot from this SSD or HDD (sataa)?
It’s 14 days since I’m fighting BPI-W2 and I’m really tired.
Banana does not provide almost any documentation, any support,
all day long I’m just looking for a solution to the problems it brings.
Since buying the BPi-W2, I just spend time finding solutions to problems. that pre-installed OS brings.
None SinoVoip system does not work as it should, either GPIO, Mali-GPU, LAN_2 not work, depositaire, read-only error or Wifi.
After endless searching for and studying the development of the ARM platform then you find out that the core of Banana then does not support half of the thing.
This is my last attempt to put it together, if i can get to Debian or Ubuntu on the HDD and boot from it, if not, so I will return it BPI-W2 back to Shop and buy the equipment from another Manufacteur with more active support and more documentation.
I’m really very tired of this half-functional device… thank you very much for any help and precious time you guys
You need to boot at least till uboot (if your uboot has sata support). I guess your uboot does not have sata support so you need to load also linux kernel from sd/emmc and then point to your rootfs on hdd/ssd via cmdline/bootargs.
I connected the HDD to a PC using an USB adapter as an external drive.
I ran BelenaEtcher and flashed UbuntuMate.img.zip on that HDD.
On the SD card where I had the OS, I rewrote uEnv:
#root=/dev/sda2 rw rootfstype=ext4 rootwait
To
root=/dev/sataa2 rw rootfstype=ext4 rootwait
and booting from HDD to Stataa…
As I said above, everything works just halfway. Tomorrow morning I send BPI-W2 back. I no longer have the mood to look for documentation that does not exist.
Previously (5 years ago) when I left Banana (I had BananaPro), the Banana books were coming out, I thought the development had improved a little in 5 years, I was wrong.
Up to a few volunteers, what it holds here, such as KamilS, frank-W, JackZenetc, etc etc, users here would remain completely doomed to themselves. Thanks guys.
It seems to me that Sinovoip is just one person who plays with Banan at home and here and there, when they do, clones the system as it is and publishes it.
For those courageous users of Banana Pi, I wish you good luck and strong nerves.
PS: Today I received a new ARM motherboard from another manufacturer.
What I couldn’t put into operation on BPI-W2 in 14 days, now I did in one morning.
First I wanted to buy “Jetson Nano”, but finally I bought “Orange Pi RK3399 2 GB DDR3 16 GB EMM”, and a motherboard with CPU x86 + Intel UHD (4K compatible) ASRock J5005-ITX + PICO PSU.
I am very pleased with the Orange Pi RK3399, right after the installation everything works as it should. Wifi, Ethernet, 4K.
(which allowed me to install and use a normal OS, not some docked BETA or LITE version from SinoVOIP)
In France, BPI-W2 and sold at $ 135 price, Orange Pi RK3399 95$ and Asrock j5005 ** at $ 125 with better power, documentation and comunity of developers.
I am interested in HW development as well as development on Linux (UNIX) OS, but with BananaPi one has to learn to completely develop ARM from Realtek again, which I don’t have time for and secondly I wouldn’t buy a $ 135 base board for it.
Banana Pi model BPI-W2is for me a very, very bad joke and bad experience.
** Why Banana Pi mounts hardware parts on PCBs on which they cannot, they are not compatible with KERNEL the operating system which develops - it mystery for my. This is how to buy a bathing cap on the desert.*
HAHAHA, I understand your frustration. But Maintaining Linux kernel for so many devices is not an easy task for any manufacturer. I think you’re right that they should atleast have a Stable release with all the components working along with a proper documentation. Looks like they’re trying their best but its not par with other manufacturers.
I don’t think you can get HW Acc in this device also with Linux, As Panfrost is still WIP and DTB needs to be updated for GPU/VPU to make use of the panfrost driver. Also need Latest Mesa and then all the Aarch64 apps to be re-built with gles support, which is a very long task.
We’re working on another RK3399 device and it seems stable with panfrost but still not production ready.
Which OS is this ? It must be the FireOS or LibreElec, Not a Linux Desktop Environment. Isn’t it?
Versions available for my device OrangePi RK3399 include :
(purchased for the fun of both the construction of a non-serious. Which I bought for $ 35 at Black Friday discounts):
(So far I’ve only tried Ubuntu & Android + KODI mentioned. VPU Suppors H.264/H.265/VP9, gPU OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.1 OpenVG1.1, OpenCL & DX11 + AFBC)
I use Orange as a multimedia station, and Asrock J5005 as Server + WEB.
Mentioned Asrock + PICOPSU I have consumption between 6-15W MAX, which is quite acceptable for x86 CPU.
Do you have any experience with Orange products? For me it’s the first time I spent more time with Raspberry or developing on Arduino
This says it was using libhybris which is the android libraries on Linux to make the hardware work which was a workaround and not a permanent solution and it was built for legacy Kernel like 4.9 etc.
