Hi everyone,
I recently purchased the Banana Pi BPI-R4 with 8 GB RAM and I’m trying to determine the correct procedure for installing the official upstream OpenWrt images on this hardware.
I’ve reviewed the device page:
https://openwrt.org/inbox/toh/sinovoip/bananapi_bpi-r4
And I’ve gone through the related discussions:
• https://forum.banana-pi.org/t/bpi-r4-successfully-upgraded-8gb-ram-on-bpi-r4/17882/98
• https://forum.openwrt.org/t/bpi-r4-8gb-ram/242687
However, I’m still unclear about the underlying reason why the 8 GB variant isn’t supported out of the box, and the current workarounds don’t seem like a sustainable long-term solution. From my understanding, users are currently limited to:
• using the vendor’s customized image (which is quite old),
• flashing pre-built, non-official BL2 binaries, or
• rebuilding the entire boot chain themselves and overriding the existing one, typically using Frank’s sources.
Given that the 8 GB model is becoming increasingly popular, many users assume it will be fully usable with OpenWrt. To address this, I can imagine a few possible paths forward:
-
Add official support for the 8 GB variant as a separate device option, or
-
Merge Frank’s boot-chain changes into the official OpenWrt tree, or
-
Officially endorse and host the necessary BL2/bootloader artifacts, so users aren’t relying on third-party or unofficial builds for such a critical component.
I’ve interacted with Frank before — he’s extremely helpful and active — but many users (myself included) are understandably hesitant to rely on unendorsed binaries for core bootloader components.
I’d appreciate clarification on what the long-term plan might be, or guidance on what needs to happen to make proper 8 GB support feasible within OpenWrt itself.
Thanks a lot for your time and for all your work on the project.
Best regards,
R.