Safe way to upgrade bpi r3mini

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

hey all,

i wish i never reach this point but having deepseek and chatgpt fighting over which image should use the factory-bin or the sysupgrade to upgrade my banana pi bpi r3 mini its giving me headache so i couldnt decide which one to believe.

heres some outputs

oot@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/os-release
NAME="OpenWrt"
VERSION="21.02-SNAPSHOT"
ID="openwrt"
ID_LIKE="lede openwrt"
PRETTY_NAME="OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT"
VERSION_ID="21.02-snapshot"
HOME_URL="https://openwrt.org/"
BUG_URL="https://bugs.openwrt.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://forum.openwrt.org/"
BUILD_ID="unknown"
OPENWRT_BOARD="mediatek/mt7986"
OPENWRT_ARCH="aarch64_cortex-a53"
OPENWRT_TAINTS="no-all busybox"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER="OpenWrt"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER_URL="https://openwrt.org/"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_PRODUCT="Generic"
OPENWRT_DEVICE_REVISION="v0"
OPENWRT_RELEASE="OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT unknown"
root@OpenWrt:~#



root@OpenWrt:~# ubus call system board
{
        "kernel": "5.4.171",
        "hostname": "OpenWrt",
        "system": "ARMv8 Processor rev 4",
        "model": "Bananapi BPI-R3MINI",
        "board_name": "bananapi,bpi-r3mini",
        "release": {
                "distribution": "OpenWrt",
                "version": "21.02-SNAPSHOT",
                "revision": "unknown",
                "target": "mediatek/mt7986",
                "description": "OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT unknown"
        }
}
root@OpenWrt:~#


root@OpenWrt:~# which opkg
/bin/opkg
root@OpenWrt:~#


root@OpenWrt:~# cat /proc/cmdline
console=ttyS0,115200n1 loglevel=8                               earlycon=uart8250,mmi  o32,0x11002000
root@OpenWrt:~#

anyhelp is much much appreciated

2

Firmware Selector to the rescue: https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=24.10.4&target=mediatek%2Ffilogic&id=bananapi_bpi-r3-mini

3

yeah but which image? factory-bin? sysupgrade-bin?

4

Anything with "factory" in the name is intended as the first-install version, i.e, when the device is running "factory" firmware.

The "sysupgrade" files are for when you are already running OpenWrt on the device and are ready to do "sysupgrade".

So, in your case, the sysupgrade image is the right one...

5

This is first boot, just got the board and im not sure if its safe, Somesay i cant sysupgrade on unofficial openwrt by bpi/sdk as its old version cant sysupgrade. Im still confused

6

I'm not familiar with that device or its boot requirements, but even with an OpenWrt fork, the sysupgrade program should be the same (I can't imaging anyone hacking that up).

Should be as simple as

wget https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/24.10.4/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-24.10.4-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r3-mini-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb -O /tmp/firmware.bin
sysupgrade --test /tmp/firmware.bin

Assuming the --test says it's ok, then

sysupgrade /tmp/firmware.bin

and watch it reboot into 24.10.4...

7

Read through commit message
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/commit/b03d3644cfe9eb8db2a3441c55c84b076ba7cd08

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