My experience with Banana Pi M5

I recently bought a Banana Pi M5 and I regret it. No matter how good is a hardware piece, if there is not a reliable software to use it then that hardware is useless.

In the case of Raspberry Pi its main advantage is not the hardware but the software and support available for it.

My recommendation to everyone DO NOT BUY ANY RASPBERRY PI CLONE IF IT IS NOT 100% COMPATIBLE WITH THE ORIGINAL; OTHERWISE YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR MONEY.

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what issue are you have ??? we can help you

For a start, the only operating system more or less working is Ubuntu. But after installing the browser programs they do not work, not even Firefox which is the default, I also instalked Chromium, neither work. When I try to run them do not start.

firefox is work on ubuntu mate, but no hardware acceleration

m5

I have an M5 mothballed somewhere waiting to be used in a media centre project I have planned. I remember when I received it that I tested it with Armbian and was rather satisfied with the outcome (the web browser worked and was able to play YouTube videos in 1080p), although I didn’t dig into whether or not hardware acceleration was working.

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Next time you might want to be more humble and ask for help before saying things like that. :slight_smile:

I guess this applies:

DO NOT BUY ANY HARDWARE IF YOU’RE NOT RESOURCEFUL ENOUGH.

Armbian should work pretty well. Did you try that?

https://www.armbian.com/bananapi-m5/

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I have a BPI M5 and installed Raspbian OS. IT works very well and I am using as my desktop for severl months without any issues. I keep it up-to-date and use Vivaldi Browser. I hear web radio stations with a great sound (Anker Speaker). I also installed VPN and have my protection up. It is not as fast as my iMacPro but it does a decent job. I connected to my bedroom TV and read daily the news on it. I will recommend this SBC as powerful and stable. I leave it on and reboot only if is required.

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I totally agree with you, see my post here: BPI-M5 with Android system