Wifi setup

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Hi,

 

I'm trying to setup the wifi with the image:

 

Armbian 24.8.1 Bookworm Minimal / IOT

 

But there is no wlan0 on the ip a command. Can you please give me a hint on how to setup the wifi with the bananapi M4 zero? I have also tried the server image debian12 but found the same issue.

 

FYI I tried an image from the BPI M4 zero website:

 

20240819-Bananapi-Armbian_24.8.0-trunk_Bpi-m4zero_Debian12

 

And there is wlan0 so I successfully configured the wifi ( but there is no bananapi-config to copy the image to the emmc but that's another story... )

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited September 8 by Eloy Bote Falcon

[kris777]

try this in terminal

nmcli device wifi list

nmcli device wifi connect "$SSID" password "$PASSWORD"

 

[c0rnelius]

When did you purchase the unit? The new BPI-M4-ZERO has SDIO WiFi and uses BRCM. The older units have WiFi over USB and use REALTEK.

 

Unfortunately I don't have the newer unit.

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Hey kris, there is no nmcli command

 

c0rnelius: I purchased the board a few weeks ago, is the new version with 4GB ram and 32Gb emmc.

[Igor]

https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Networking/

[c0rnelius]

I'm honestly not sure about the specs. I only know they have a new REV out, as someone has already approached me about WiFi not working.

 

One way to tell would be looking at the WiFi module on the unit. If it isn't REALTEK, than its the new REV.

 

Attached was the chipset on their unit.

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Definitely is the new revision.

 

I can check the other armbian image 20240819-Bananapi-Armbian_24.8.0-trunk_Bpi-m4zero_Debian12 to see how can I enable the wifi device, but I don't know where to start, maybe the device tree?

Edited September 8 by Eloy Bote Falcon

[c0rnelius]

I'm told the bluetooth doesn't work, which is why I haven't submitted it. The patch was also done quick and dirty and I'm sure needs some clean up.

0001-arch-arm64-dts-allwinner-sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero-v2.patch

[kris777]

install in system:

sudo apt-get install network-manager

try this in terminal

nmcli device wifi list 
nmcli device wifi connect "$SSID" password "$PASSWORD"

I know it's not recommended by developers / @Igor connecting to wifi on Armbian FW ... but I did it like on standard Linux and it also works on FW from OrangePi suppliers 🙂

Edited September 8 by kris777

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Thanks for the path c0rnelius!

 

Honestly I have never build armbian but I think that I can do it applying your patch with this 2 guides:

 

https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_User-Configurations/#user-provided-patches

https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Build-Preparation/#what-do-i-need

 

If you dont' have any users with this new revision of M4 zero and need any help just ask me please!

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Hey c0rnelius,

 

Can you please tell me where to put the patch? Searching the repository I see 3 similar file names:

 

build/patch/kernel/archive/sunxi-6.6/patches.armbian/arch-arm64-dts-allwinner-sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero.patch
build/patch/kernel/archive/sunxi-6.7/patches.armbian/arm64-dts-allwinner-sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero.patch
build/patch/kernel/archive/sunxi-6.9/patches.armbian/arch-arm64-dts-allwinner-sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero.patch

 

It's a noob question sorry but I'm new to the project, sorry.

[c0rnelius]

@Eloy Bote Falcon

 

Try this pre-compiled binary. I'm gonna need to re-write some of that patch to work with armbian.

sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero-v2.dtb

[Eloy Bote Falcon]

Thank you very much @c0rnelius the patch works perfectly.

 

And thank you @Igor too for the link to setup the wifi!

[Oompa Loompa]

Hello.

 

I have the same problem - there is no wlan0 interface for BPI-M4 Zero. Probably I also have new revision board (4G RAM, 32G eMMC, bought two weeks ago).

I've put sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero-v2.dtb file at /boot/dtb/allwiner directory and reboot, but it doesn't help.

I use Armbian_24.8.1_Bananapim4zero_bookworm_current_6.6.44.img image.

[c0rnelius]

Scroll to the bottom of the page and try a rolling release IMG. https://www.armbian.com/bananapi-m4-zero/

 

We are in the middle of sorting out the BT, but WiFi should work VIA overlay.

My notes are here; https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/7332

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Thank you.

rolling release (I've switched to night builds via armbian-config) and overlay did the trick - now wifi is working.

[rowan]

I am a total noob, but thank you very much for providing this solution.

I've written out how I managed to solve it using everything mentioned in this post and the pull request so that other users can use it too:

I downloaded "Debian Testing (Trixie) Minimal / IOT stable 6.6.54" from the "Rolling releases images with Armbian Linux v6.6" section on the page https://www.armbian.com/bananapi-m4-zero/
I installed Network Manager with the following command (it's a nice to have tool)

sudo apt-get install network-manager

and added the following line to `/boot/armbianEnv.txt` .

overlays=bananapi-m4-sdio-wifi-bt

then I rebooted and listed my device using nmcli.

when I saw that wlan0 was available I connected using this command, replacing $SSID and $PASSWORD with my Wifi name and password:

nmcli device wifi connect "$SSID" password "$PASSWORD"