Installation on Banana Pi R2 (BPI-R2)

Hi,
I'm trying to setup my BPI-R2 with openwrt 18.06.2 which seems to be supported according to the download area.
Boot media should be SD card.
I'm going round in circles searching for any working guide.

I'm actually unsure what to to with the .bin files

  • 7623n-bananapi-bpi-r2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
  • 7623n-bananapi-bpi-r2-initramfs-kernel.bin

If I get it right I can only use them to upgrade an already working installation?
(Writing them to SD didn't start up the BPI)

I can boot the BPI from SD using an Ubuntu 16.04 mate .img file.

I found several already compiled openwrt mtk-bpi-r2-SD.img files (Most say 18.06 for mtk7623)
Whenever I write any of them to the SD card (tried several image writing tools), the BPI seems to start up but only ever shows a black screen.
It doesn't show up in my DHCP server so I guess it's not just a display issue.

I currently didn't compile the image for myself because I think it won't differ from the precompiled stuff which works for people

Any advice how to initially setup openwrt here?

Thank you :slight_smile:
Chris

1 Like

Typically, for a device you have two versions of OpenWrt: factory, which is used for initial flashing, and sysupgrade, which is used for upgrading OpenWrt to a more recent version.

When you have only initramfs and sysupgrade, you flash initramfs first (which writes to the RAM--so non persistent) then you flash sysupgrade straightway.

Flash the initramfs image into RAM and boot it, then use it to flash the sysupgrade (SCP to /tmp RAM disk, then run the sysupgrade script).

Altenratively, as per the insturactions in http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/bpi-r2-new-image-bpi-r2-openwrt-lede-souce-code-2018-05-09/5646, you can flash their release first from here here https://dev.banana-pi.org.cn/Image/BPI-R2/Openwrt/1806/ then flash with the official OpenWrt sysupgrade.

1 Like

Could you please explain this step a bit more as this is exactly where I fail.
I searched the web intensely but every post is like "you know it if you know it".

I already tried the alternative method but the .img file you linked doesn't boot (giving just the black screen as every other .img file I found for bpi-r2).

1 Like

Not any suggestion or even some keywords to search for?

Hello there,

i think you get some things wrong. The OpenWRT Image for BPi R2 comes without HDMI support so its ok that there is only a black screen. You need to enter your BPi via Browser with LuCi or over SSH. Connect your PC with LAN cable to your BPi.

1 Like