Building Custom Armbian FirmWare for BananaPi M2 Berry

[Calvin Ronksley]

Dear Community,

 

I want to build a custom FirmWare for Banana Pi M2 Berry, im currently using the BPI-M2-Ultra Firmware, cuz no BPI-M2-Berry FirmWare exist.

What do I need for building for my SBC(BPI-M2-Berry) ? I want to use my SBC as a LTE-Router/ Mesh-Repeater and want to pre-install some necessary packages, the device need.

I want to build a Dashboard for Administrate the Device. Maybe I'll use electron + reactjs, or would it be better to use php for it?

 

 

Greetz BlackLeakz

[Prana Cale]

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 ... 😒🙄

[hexzhen3x7]

Im currently working on a Build-System specially for Banana Pi !"

 

If you want, i can send you a build, made for this board, It works fine!"

[Prana Cale]

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... 

[Igor]

On 2/19/2024 at 2:28 PM, Prana Cale said:

GUI is damn slow, most resportys for updates are broken or shutted down, all tools from menu that require admin will not start ... 😒🙄

 

1 hour ago, Prana Cale said:

So I'm using this

Since you tried both. Any improvement over Armbian?

[Prana Cale]

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 ~~~

Edited January 11 by Prana Cale

[bananenkuchen]

hey guys, great to see there are other people existing trying to get their banana pi 2 running.

I am very close to rage quitting as well. Ordered two new BPI 2 Berry a few days ago because RPI prices are insane here.

After doing some (~6 hrs) research and trying out today, it seems like nothing is working fine for me.

The sd-card-img you mentioned gave me hope, but I fail as well because its literally to much missing.

Cant connect to wifi, ssh is not working correctly as well etc.

Armbian does not seem to work for me as well, theres a bunch of issues.

It shows any nearby wifi except mine. Theres literally the wifi from across the street, my phone hotspot, or public wifi from my city, but my wifi is not even showing.

Configuring it manually is not working as well, any other device (plenty of computers, NUCs, console, handhelds, phones, tablets, smart speakers, LEDs) are working without a problem. Only the banana is not cappable of seeing it. Not even the slightest of my SSID. I also tried a lot of things reconfiguring the access point, no matter what I do, it wont work. Restarted, changed WPA2 / WPA3, 2,4Ghz / 2,5Ghz, other SSIDs, its just not working at all. Very unfortunate, I mainly bought it because of the onboard wifi chip. Wanted to set it up as a cheap Airplay / Spotify Connect device for an older audio setup.

I also tried the very sketchy gdrive link from the official site but different tools werent even cappable of flashing it to the tf card, it worked one time but the PI never booted up correctly.

If u find any working version of raspbian OS or any other please let me know. Im desperatly trying to get at least any worth out of my money here.

 

Appreciate it!

[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).

Edited 3 hours ago by Prana Cale