[Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite] Support

For Developers
1

Hey all,

the Banana BPI-R4 Lite released, and I try (my first time) to build an image for that platform. It is currently not official supported, but the Mediatek team has a repo with the 24.x SDK prepared.

I tried to build this, but struggling with getting this up and running. My main issue is that Mediatek is using their own autobuild approach, and I will not get a *.img for the SD boot. But this I need to test :pensive_face: .

So I would like to ask if somebody can support here, and maybe we can get an image created for testing this new platform. For me, the WiFi support is not required yet.

2

when using a vendor SDK, you need to ask the vendor.

Devices in use with OpenWrt: Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite

not entirely true, is it ?

3

not entirely true, is it ?

Pre-installed image on the NAND and they (BPI) have a 21.02-SNAPSHOT in the docs.

4

doesn't change anything, it's still a vendor SDK.
back in 21.02 the SoC wasn't even supported by Linux.

5
Model Bananapi BPI-R4Lite
Architecture ARMv8 Processor rev 4
Target Platform mediatek/mt7987
Firmware Version OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT unknown / LuCI openwrt-21.02 branch git-23.093.57360-e98243e
Kernel Version 5.4.281

That's I'm currently testing (provided image) but it seems to have some bugs in it.
Thank you for informing me that this is an SDK - I also ask the "vendor" to have a more prescriptive guidance to get a stable and working build. Just want to see if somebody on the openwrt side is also currently doing investigations. Because currently not much infos are out there for this platfrom.

6

they don't know/care.

so far you've been asking the wrong question(s).

7

Seems they’ve shipped mine on a very slow boat as latest communication indicates expected arrival is December 15 - December 29!

8

For all R4 Lite users, after 3 weeks trying out... I was able to compile Openwrt 24.10 to R4 Lite with sdcard image...

I've dropped here the image and also the packages compiled with (kmods and others).

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9

Initial support has been merged for MT7987 and Banana Pi R4 Lite in Main Snapshot branch:

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