Ubuntu 18.04/20.04 with kernel 5.4 in Banana Pi R2

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
1

Hi All,

We are using Banana pi R64 for networking purpose. We have used the Kernel source package from https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R64-bsp-5.4

We built the Kernel to enable the needed modules for our needs. The system is up and we are able to realize the needed networking capabilities.

Before identifying the industrial hardware, we used Raspberry Pi 4 to develop the functionalities. While testing on BPI-R64, we are realizing our network applications and Linux command line utilities performances are slow. We understand Raspberry Pi 4 is quad core and BPI-R64 is dual core.

We are planning to use BPI-R2 which is quad core. Our requirement is to use Ubuntu 20.04. The image provided for BPI-R2 http://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R2#Ubuntu_with_kernel_4.4 is only Ubuntu 16.04

Would like to check whether Ubuntu 20.04 is available for BPI-R2 or at least Ubuntu 18.04 as in BPI-R64

Please let us know.

Thanks in advance.

2

18.04 is here: [BPI-R2] Ubuntu 18.4 with kernel 4.14.48

And in my wiki i have wrote down the way to create such image…

https://www.fw-web.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en/bpi-r2/ubuntu

Basicly you can use image above and replace rootfs and then kernel. So you have no trouble with uboot and boot-headers

3

Thank you, Frank. I will try this.

Will the system performance be better with BPI-R2 hardware ?

4

Between ubuntu/kernel versions? I don’t think there will be huge difference

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We will be using Ubuntu. I mean the system performance between BPI-R64 and BPI-R2. Will BPI-R2 perform better than BPI-R64 ?

6

hard to compare, but r2 is quadcore (to distribute processes) and have more RAM (2GB instead of 1GB). but it will depend on your needs if this is faster…a single basic process will be similar as it uses only (part of) 1 core. multicore is better on running multiple processes on different cores

Btw. Do you write about these problems? BananaPi R64 - Ubuntu 18.04 System very slow performance

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Thank you, Frank.

Yes, our team is working on this BananaPi R64 - Ubuntu 18.04 System very slow performance.

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In my image netplan is disabled and kernel may still have the sdcard bug (but maybe not related because it may use old uboot). So update kernel and reenable netplan (disable ifupdown too)

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Armbian has an Ubuntu 20.04 version for the BPI-R2 but with a 4.19 kernel.