Prana Cale

Banana Pi M2 Berry – My Advice This board is a pain. It can’t boot from SSD. An SSD can hit ~200 MB/s, but you’ll need a strong 5 V power supply – especially at startup it often needs 3 A or more. If it refuses to boot (happened to me a lot), the cause was almost always a weak PSU. Other issues: the V40 SoC has almost no proper support and was never optimized. That means no real 3D acceleration – if it works at all, it’s unstable. Sound output often doesn’t work, HDMI audio basically never worked for me. Wi-Fi usually works, but only 2.4 GHz and WPA2 max. If you want more, you’ll need a compatible USB stick – but even then you’re limited to ~15 MB/s because it’s just USB 2.0. If you want >100 MB/s, you’ll need to use the LAN port and write to SSD. Forget doing that on the SD card. To be honest, almost nothing that came out after 2020 runs well as an OS on this thing. The official ISOs are here: 👉 https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-M2_Berry You can test them if you like – they all run “meh” at best. As I said, 3D acceleration is rare, and when it exists it’s terrible. Another option to test: 👉 https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/BPI-M2_Berry/BananaPi_BPI-M2_Berry For me, the best (and really the only sensible) choice right now: 👉 https://sd-card-images.johang.se/boards/banana_pi_m2_berry.html But it’s pure/light – console only. You have to install everything else yourself. If you’ve ever managed a root server, you know the path: tmux/screen for multi-window SSH, sudo apt install apache2 -y, MariaDB, mail server, SSL certificates (yes, free ones), dynamic DNS, Pi-hole, cronjobs, and so on. Everything works, but you’ll need patience and some hand-holding (AI copilots can help). If you don’t have time for all that: get something better. Realistically, all you can use this board for today is as a shell server. Nothing else works properly. Honestly, even an old smartphone is a thousand times better. That’s why the M2 Berry was already dirt-cheap when I bought it in 2017 (€18 😂💩). Bottom line: The only sensible use is as a shell server. For anything else it’s useless – the drivers are crap, the V40 has almost no support. An old laptop or smartphone will serve you better (and it will run latest linux and 3d accel..) and by the way SPI or something like that can be also used over special boards/esp2066/esp32 and more ... And Banana Pi M2 Berry as an emulator? Forget about it ... PS: To write proper image files on Windows, I use Rufus or PowerISO (on Windows 11, UAC probably needs to be turned off).

I will test all the distros again and get back to you in a few days with the results. As I mentioned before, I want to run a web server on it, including some goodies like backup software, Plex, or Jellyfin, etc. Access would be exclusively through SSH or Xfce. It should also boot from an SD card and I'll connect a 20GB hard drive... The current test withdebian-bookworm-armhf-ou4eux.bin.gz(Minimal, pure and up-to-date vanilla Debian/Ubuntu Linux SD card image for Banana Pi M2 Berry) failed because of my lack of LINUX SKILLS 😒I couldn't even change the keyboard layout, because it's missing all components 🤣 Have to try again... last time and if it will fail or do not work well I go with something more more powerfull like AMD Ryzen... 6-8-16 cores . Anyway Banana Pi will be temporary even it this work... simply to weak ~~~

hey @hexzhen3x7 Can you send me one? I'm trying to build a web server. Seems like Banana Pi M2 berry is too slow for using GUI? So I'm using this: https://sd-card-images.johang.se/boards/banana_pi_m2_berry.html anyway give me what you got, wanna try it it. Expecially if it uses the board pins for coding...

Hi I have here Banana Pi M2 Berry and I want to use it now as web server, plus few more things, ftp, plex, pi-hole and later also for use some sensors on it. What the best the best OS for it? Armbian is always made for Ultra not Berry and most versions make problems 🙄😒😉 The GUI itself is so !SLOW!, maybe the driver for video are also not right? Can someone give me a link to a proper Armbian for Banana Pi M2 Berry ??? Or advice what for alternative OS?

I have also Banana Pi M2 Berry - kinda sad there no much support for ... I want to install lastest Armbian to SSD and boot from SSD ... then the usuals Apache, MySQL and and and ... I will use it mostly as web server ... currently installed armbian (trunk.19_Bananapim2ultra_jammy_current_6.6.16_xfce_desktop.img.xz) - don't work well, GUI is damn slow, most resportys for updates are broken or shutted down, all tools from menu that require admin will not start ... 😒🙄