banana pi News - Page 4 of 15 - CNX Software

July 26, 2023July 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 29 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini – A low-profile 2.5GbE router board powered by MediaTek Filogic 830 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini router board is powered by MediaTek MT7986 (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with 2GB DDR4, an 8GB eMMC flash, two low-profile 2.5GbE ports, and WiFi 6 support. It also comes with an M.2 PCIe socket that can be used with an NVMe SSD or a 5G cellular module. The BPI-R3 Mini is based on many of the same chips as found on the Banana Pi BPI-R3 board, but with a much more compact design that makes it suitable as a 2.5GbE firewall, wireless router or repeater, home security gateway, home automation gateway, NAS device, and more. Banana Pi BPI-R3 Mini specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with hardware acceleration engines for Wi-Fi offloading and networking System Memory – 2GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 128MB NAND flash, M.2 2230 NVMe SSD socket Networking 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports via […]

July 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-KVM – A KVM over IP solution based on Rockchip RK3568 SoC

Banana Pi has started working on the BPI-KVM box based on a Rockchip RK3568 SoC, but it’s not a mini PC, and instead, it is a KVM over IP solution designed to remotely control another computer or device as if you were on-site with, for example, the ability to turn on and off the connected device, access the BIOS, and so on. Commercial KVM over IP solutions used to be expensive, but people have started to use Raspberry Pi SBCs with an expansion board such as the PiKVM v3, and more recently Raspberry Pi CM4-based KVM over IP solutions have been launched for under well $200. Seeing the popularity of these solutions, Banana Pi has decided to join the fray with its own BPI-KVM powered by an IO-rich Rockchip RK3568 processor that provides all interfaces needed for this type of application. Banana Pi BPI-KVM (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 […]

June 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

$26 WiFi 6 router board features Triductor TR6560 & TR5220 chips

Banana Pi BPI-Wifi 6 is an ultra-low-cost WiFi 6 router board with five Gigabit Ethernet ports based on Triductor Technology TR6560 dual-core Cortex-A9 router SoC and TR5220 WiFi 6 chipset and that sells for just $26.32 plus shipping on Aliexpress, or $39.99 as part of a kit with the board, four antennas, and a 12V power supply. The board is equipped with 512MB RAM and a 128MB SPI flash for OpenWrt, comes with four antenna connectors for WiFi, and can also take an optional 12V PoE module for power instead of relying on a 12V power adapter via a DC jack. Banana Pi BPI-WiFi 6 board specifications: SoC – Triductor TR6560 dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz with LSW (Line-Card Switching) and hardware NAT up to 5 Gbps WiFi chipset – Triductor TR5220 WiFi 6 chipset System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 128MB SPI NAND flash Networking […]

June 26, 2023August 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Linux 6.4 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.4 has just been released by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): Hmm. Final week of 6.4 is done, and we’ve mainly got some netfilter fixes, some mm reverts, and a few tracing updates. There’s random small changes elsewhere: the usual architecture noise, a number of selftest updates, some filesystem fixes (btrfs, ksmb), etc. Most of the stuff in my mailbox the last week has been about upcoming things for 6.5, and I already have 15 pull requests pending. I appreciate all you proactive people. But that’s for tomorrow. Today we’re all busy build-testing the newest kernel release, and checking that it’s all good. Right? Released around two months ago, Linux 6.3 brought us AMD’s “automatic IBRS” Spectre defense mechanism, additional progress on the Rust front with User-mode Linux support (on x86-64 systems only), the NFS filesystem (both the client and server sides) gained support for […]

May 11, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-Centi-S3 – An ESP32-S3 board with an 1.9-inch TFT display and a rotary encoder

Banana Pi BPI-Centi-S3 ESP32-S3 display board

Banana Pi BPI-Centi-S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi & BLE IoT board with a 1.9-inch color TFT display, a rotary encoder, and a few I/Os, which offers an alternative to the T-Track ESP32-S3 board with AMOLED and trackball we covered a few days ago. The Banana Pi board also comes with a 2MB on-chip PSRAM, an 8MB SPI flash, a USB Type-C port for power and debugging, two buttons, a buzzer, and an RGB LED. Besides powering the board with its USB-C port, you can also connect a LiPo battery with charging support. Banana Pi BPI-Centi-S3 specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 512KB RAM, 2MB PSRAM, wireless connectivity Storage – 8MB SPI flash Connectivity via ESP32-S3 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 4 with 40 MHz bandwidth support up to 150 Mbps Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0 connectivity […]

May 5, 2023May 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-W3 SBC features Rockchip RK3588 SoM, M.2 NVMe socket, 2.5GbE, HDMI output and input

Banana Pi BPI-W3 is another Rockchip RK3588 SBC (single board computer) with 8GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, an M.2 NVMe socket, 2.5GbE networking, two HDMI 2.1 output ports, one HDMI 2.0 input port, and other features. We first recovered the board last summer, but at the time the RK3588 SBC came with a PCIe x4 slot and dual Gigabit Ethernet, and the company has now redesigned the board without either using instead a Rockchip RK3588 system-on-module as part of the design and implemented 2.5GbE and M.2 NVMe SSD support with the available PCIe interfaces. Banana Pi BPI-W3 specifications: SoM – BPI-RK3588 core board SoC- Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU, a 6 TOPS NPU, 8Kp60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 10-bit decoder, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoder System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 (options for 4GB to 32GB) Storage […]

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 6.3 release – Notable changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.3 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): It’s been a calm release this time around, and the last week was really no different. So here we are, right on schedule, with the 6.3 release out and ready for your enjoyment. That doesn’t mean that something nasty couldn’t have been lurking all these weeks, of course, but let’s just take things at face value and hope it all means that everything is fine, and it really was a nice controlled release cycle. It happens. This also obviously means the merge window for 6.4 will open tomorrow. I already have two dozen pull requests waiting for me to start doing my pulls, and I appreciate it. I expect I’ll have even more when I wake up tomorrow. But in the meantime, let’s enjoy (and test) the 6.3 release. As always, the shortlog […]

March 8, 2023August 14, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Banana BPI-P2 Pro headless SBC features RK3308 CPU, PoE Ethernet, WiFi 5, audio jack

Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro is Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 SBC for headless applications with a PoE-capable Ethernet port, WiFi 5, a USB port, an audio jack, and two GPIO headers for expansion. You may think the Banana Pi guys have gone crazy by calling such entry-level level SBC “Pro”, but that’s because the company previously released the BPI-P2 Zero and BPI-P2 Maker single board computers based on Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, so the BPI-P2 Pro is indeed an improvement albeit with some caveats. Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR2 SDRAM [Update: According to Rockchip RK3308 specifications, the maximum memory capacity is 512MB, so Banana Pi may have meant 2 Gbit instead, meaning 256MB of RAM]. Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output – […]