banana pi News - Page 5 of 15 - CNX Software

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 – […]

February 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Armbian 23.02 out with Linux 6.1, DietPi 8.14 adds experimental RISC-V support

Two of the most popular projects providing images for Arm and RISC-V single board computers have released new updates with Armbian 23.02 adding Linux 6.1-based Debian and Ubuntu images, and DietPi 8.14 adding experimental RISC-V support for the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC and new Arm boards. Armbian 23.02 Quoll Linux 6.1 is the latest LTS kernel, so Armbian is now providing Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy and Debian 11 Bullseye images based on Linux 6.1.y for boards that support it, as well as the first development images based on Debian 12 Bookworm and Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar. I could not find any new boards added in the changelog, but the release brings several improvements and bug fixes to some of the already supported SBCs including the Raspberry Pi 3, Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS, ROCK Pi S, ROCK Pi 4, NanoPi R2S, NanoPi NEO3, and Banana Pi BPI-M2 Pro. The announcement also highlights […]

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Auspicious Machine modular handheld Linux PC with keyboard takes various Arm-based SoMs

The “Auspicious Machine” may look like a Blackberry phone, but it’s actually a handheld Linux PC with a built-in QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5-inch display that can be powered by a range of system-on-modules (SoM). The computer, whose name can also be translated as the “Auspicious Phone”, can be used as a Linux terminal with GPIO control, and for gaming with Linux distributions such as Batotera or RetroBat with the D-Pad and ABXY buttons found on the device. Auspicious Machine specifications: Supported SoMs Bigtreetech CB1 with Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and 1GB DDR4 Raspberry Pi CM4 with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor, up to 8GB LPDDR4, up to 32GB eMMC flash Radxa CM3 with Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, up to 4GB LPDDR4, up to 64GB eMMC flash Banana Pi BPI-CM4 with Amlogic A311D octa-core Cortex-A73/A55 processor with 4GB LPDDR4 and 16GB eMMC flash Storage – MicroSD card socket […]

February 15, 2023February 15, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

2.5Gbps SFP to RJ45 Ethernet adapter sells for $25 shipped

Banana Pi has started selling an inexpensive 2.5Gbps SFP to RJ45 adapter for their Banana Pi BPI-R3 WiFi 6 router board that goes for $17.89 plus shipping ($25 shipped here) on Aliexpress. The BPI-R3 router includes five Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports as well as two 2.5GbE SFP cages, but since not everybody has equipment that takes SFP cables, they used to sell it with a $30 TP-Link adapter. The company now appears to have found a cheaper model marked “SFP-2.5G-T” module that works with their board. It’s designed to be inserted into one of the 2.5GbE SFP cages and provide a more common 2.5GbE RJ45 port to the user. There’s very little information about the module except its designed with an up to 100-meter cable, and the serial number BT2211010016 only points to Banana Pi’s Wiki. But I don’t think the company designed its own adapter and found another Wiki […]

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

Banana Pi BPI-CM4 Amlogic A311D system-on-module launched for $95

Banana Pi BPI-CM4 on Raspberry Pi CM4 IO board

Banana Pi BPI-CM4 system-on-module powered by an Amlogic A311D hexa-core Cortex-A73/A53 processor and compatible with the Raspberry Pi CM4 module has now been launched for $95 and up. Banana Pi introduced the Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible module with Amlogic A311D CPU last May with some 3D renders and specifications, and we expected a launch in Q4 2022 or Q1 2023 at the time. The Banana Pi BPI-CM4 is now available together with a carrier board so let’s have another look. Banana Pi BPI-CM4 specifications: SoC – Amlogic A311D hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 @ 2.0 GHz and 2x Arm Cortex-A53, Arm Mali-G52 MP4 (6EE) GPU, 5 TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash (up to 128GB) Networking Realtek RTL8211F Gigabit Ethernet PHY on-module Dual-band WiFi 5 up to 867Mbps and Bluetooth 5.2 via Realtek RTL8822CS module and 2x u.FL antenna connectors 2x 100-pin […]