Linux 4.14 Supporting some Banana Pi Products

Read that 4.14 will have additional ARM Board Support including some Banana Pi products …

  • Among the new ARM boards supported are for the Beaglebone X15 Rev C (TI AM57xx), Raspberry Pi Zero W, D-Link DIR-685 router (Gemini-based), Banana Pi R2 (MT7623), Cubietruck Plus, Banana Pi M3/M2M/M64, NanoPi A64, A64-OLinuXino, Pine64, Rockchip RK3328 Pine64/Rock64 support, ZTE ZX296718 PCBOX Board, and others.

Let’s hope they’ve missed off the M2 Ultra in the text or it will come soon…

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ARM-Hardware-Linux-4.14

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… current support status of R40-mainline kernel.

http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

Thanks for that mahoko. Can only hope this get’s completed soon as the performance using a SATA disk over my Gig network is only 40Mb/s instead of the theoretical 100Mb/s …

Unfortunately, the only team that used the Allwinner R40 was the BPI, unfortunately BPI is the team with the worst support given to the developer community, many communities are making or have already taken the decision, abandoning any BPI product (for example armbian developers).

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we try our best to support open source communities. you talk about just tkaiser. But he has another purpose, not to do with open source

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I know it’s not all your fault. Allwinner has the most responsibility for kernel support. But I’ve been waiting for kernel 4.x support for almost a year, regardless of who’s to be blamed. So at this time… I think I have to find out for an other board support SATA port multiplier and gigabit ethernet. As for me… m2u is nothing more than a sleeping trash on the desk. Really disappointed.

@mahoko Do you find an alternative?

Is this Linux repository support via Debian mainline? Or something else?

Assuming you mean Debian mainline, the 2Multra is a late starter, may require more waiting as Sunni-Xi is in control of when things are submitted to Debian mainline.

These efforts don’t happen on demand. There is a backlog of work and Linux is free. Please be patient, or volunteer to develop the code.

Sun-Xi has been planning to support kernel 4.x over a year, but is there a complete DTB from them? In this case the chip manufacturer is to be blamed. They just have made quad core version of A20 without any responsiblity. When there’s no DTB, No new kernel support. Open source is not a god.

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“Without any responsibility”?

Chickens make eggs, so perhaps you expect them to be responsible for omettes.

First, Allwinner has to spend time and money producing SOCs that may not pay the rent, then they have to get boards into developers hands to make a market for their product. Lastly, they fund Sunni-Xi to work to make Linux code for all their products in hopes of more sales.

Please try to understand that DIY hobbyist are invited to learn, but are an added expense. You can’t only sell boards individually and remain in business.

Chickens laid eggs, but the chickens never hatched eggs.

I don’t and can’t understand your opinion. I paid for my m2u, cause SINOVOIP and SunXi promoted that the R40 SOC implements “SATA 1,5Gb/s + 3,0Gb/s, SATA spec 2.6, AHCI Revision 1.3”.

see https://web.archive.org/web/20170615221515/http://linux-sunxi.org/R40

but… look, I paid for this board because I need sata port multiply function for my NAS. SATA spec 2.6 includes port multiply function and they… SunXi and SINOVOIP didn’t mentioned that port multiply function is not a concern. And… guess what I’ve found after a year from purchase?? SINOVOIP mentioned that they are not even testing this function! (what a Shock and Awe!)

see BPi M2-Ultra PMP support

Watching SINOVOIP produces Armbian based [PREVIEW] images(… Raspbian… Ubuntu… anyway) is a hope torture. They took out my money and time. And what did they do? I am not their donator but their customer.

I’ll try to be respectful and clear… Allwinner and it’s Linux code affiliate Sunni-Xi have been the source of the delay of code for Linux 4.14 Kernel for the R40. BananaPi provided you with a board in good working order that works on earlier versions of Linux code, but none of it is Debian mainline…

I have the same board, and am willing to wait for Sunni-Xi to complete the code. Why? I had the same experience with Cubieboard1, another Allwinner product that at first only worked with Andriod. That was even more challenging to get Linux working in the beginning as I had to compile it myself.

A lot of people seem to think the board manufacturer is in control of Linux development. That just not the case. You got a good board at an introductory price for developers and hobbyist. Software was to come along later.

Besides, I am sure NO ONE promised you a Linux 4.14 Kernel at the time of your purchase. SO PLEASE, try to understand who is responsible for what and try not to blame the board maker for expecting too much too soon. I am not sure where SINOVOIP comes into play as I purchased my board from someone else.

Compared to the promises that Arduino and Raspberry Pi have made, Allwinner and Sunni-Xi are angels.

If you need a board with Linux 4.14 ready to go, try an Intel product and expect to pay accordingly. You just are expecting too much too soon for too little money.

OK… too little money. Good point. I guess SunXi will not sell their products even though their losses. And look, I’m not blaming you. Please don’t be upset. SINOVOIP is not a target too.(maybe they have 5% of responsibility but probably they don’t know about R40 either just like us). I only wanted to get supports from [chip maker] SunXi that SINOVOIP could strongly request of them and I couldn’t, so very disappointed. That’s why I look like blaming someone. I’m not sure you are software engineer or not, but I hope you already know what is DTB and who is for that.

One year could be short and maybe long. FYI I’m already running Intel and A20 machine in my home and make GPIO applications with Raspberry Pi. The reason I bought this board(m2u with R40), is a good exprience of A20 on my backup machine. (at least DTB … and Armbian support). But in this R40 case… This board totally corrupted my backup plan for backup NAS. :rage: I’m afraid I will not buy any boards with SunXi chips…

And what, this is the end. I found an alternative. bpi m2u will no longer exist on my desk. :frowning: Things came clear.

So what? Port multipliers just work (as shitty) as with A20 back then, I tested it myself recently and documented it in linux-sunxi wiki (click the link there for details): http://linux-sunxi.org/SATA#PMP_support_-_using_SATA_port_multipliers_with_sunxi_devices

BTW: linux-sunxi community does not promote anything but just documents stuff and without any help from Allwinner or these ‘funny’ SinoVoip guys here code mainline kernel support from scratch.

The SinoVoip guys know about PM support, they just prefer to not ‘disturb’ their users with reality: https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-M2U-bsp/pull/3#issuecomment-330190749

LOL, too funny. BTW: in case you do what you do all the time (censoring my posts and banning my account)… this is this thread already archived so people are able to get the idea why there’s zero open source activity around @sinovoip :slight_smile:

Well, Sunni-Xi does NOT make chips or board, it produces the Linux software for chips that Allwinner designs which eventually gets submitted to Debian for approval…I like the 2M Ultra and the R40. , but knew there might be a wait.

There is a lot of confusion and unhappy people because they bought an inexpensive SOC that didn’t have Linux ready for it.

The R-40 is the most unfinished, except for the V-40 that is supposed to be similar to the R-40.

It really is useful to figure out who is supposed to deliver what before getting upset.

BananaPi might provide an Ubuntu image for one of its boards, Armbian might provide another image… BUT if Sunni-Xi hasn’t gotten anything accepted at Debian mainline, the Linux you are using is not anything but a prototype.

It’s all getting very silly as people think they are getting Linux that is fully functional while the images don’t have real support behind them from Debian, Ubuntu, or others that really control quality, security, and stability.

…spread by you unfortunately. If what you’re calling ‘Sunni-Xi’ should be http://linux-sunxi.org/Category:Community then you couldn’t be more wrong since we’re a community that receives zero help/funding from Allwinner. And from those ‘funny’ SinoVoip guys here we get only wrong information, incorrect schematics, insults and from time to time free board samples.

Same with Armbian – and really no one is submitting anything ‘to Debian for approval’. You should better check the facts first please.

And this soon since SinoVoip will most probably delete both my post and account in a few hours when it’s morning in China. There’s a reason you’re more or less on your own if you made the mistake to buy boards without support :slight_smile:

Yes You’re right. what I wrote SunXi, was Allwinner - the chip maker in fact. I was misunderstanding. If you felt uncomfortable for [SunXi], I apologize for that. All I meant is Allwinner.

Hmmm… SO i make an error and called Linux-sunxi, Sunni-xi.

I don’t recall that I said Allwinner funded Linux-Sunxi.(but apparently I did) But that lack of funding implies that Linux-sunxi may be struggling even more to produce Allwinner support for Linux.

I don’t believe in insulting volunteers that are coding for free in the spirit of open source. SO I keep asking people to be patient.

Jumping from forum to forum flaming BananaPi is not helping anyone. You just develop a negative identity.

My own experiences with Cubieboard1 and the BPi m2U have been rewarding, but I’m not expecting either to replace my desktop computer for reliability, security, or stability until they actually have Debian mainline repositories, if ever.

It’s the same old stuff that I’ve experienced with many other DIY boards, documents and software come later…maybe never. Allwinner has just learned its bad habit from the industry.

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I would love a good explanation of how all software components for Linux evolve and who is responsible for what.

It would make it easier to understand delays.

I attempted to explain, but others seem to disagree with what I thought was true.

Does SunXi get support from either Allwinner or Banana Pi?

Armbian is not supprting the R40 or the m2u, so it’s not the place to demand results, though one angry fellow has been very negative there.