Banana Pi

[Dirk Broer]

http://linuxgizmos.com/files/lemaker_bananapi2-180.jpg (http://liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/banana-pi_02.jpg)
Banana Pi started as a fork (well, sort off) of the Raspberry Pi project (http://www.bananapi.org/2014/05/is-banana-pi-clone-of-raspberry-pi.html), using different components while maintaining compatibility as much as possible. Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pi): "Banana Pi has no direct relationship to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, though its similarities are clear. "Linux user & Developer" does not consider it a "direct clone, but a considerable evolution," whilst linux.com similarly sees it as a clone with improved performance. The board layout is very similar to the Raspberry PI board, though it's about 10% larger and the relative spacing of some connectors varies. Not all Raspberry Pi accessories will fit as a result."
Where lies the difference with the Raspberry Pi?


The main SoC chip: An Allwinner ARM Cortex-A7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A7_MPCore) dual core, while the Raspberry Pi uses a Broadcom ARM11 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM11).
The Banana Pi has more features, enabled by the ARMv7 architecture, but is still compatible to run applications designed for the ARMv6. The Banana Pi will perform better than the Raspberry Pi on most tasks (http://hardware-libre.fr/2014/06/raspberry-vs-banana-hardware-duel/).
The physical dimensions of Banana Pi are bigger than those of a Raspberry Pi, so be aware!
Current boxing designed for a Raspberry Pi is not big enough to fit a Banana Pi.
The Banana Pi has more hardware components. For example, the Banana Pi has an on-board microphone, an internal SATA2.0 connector, an IR receiver, an OTG connector, plus a power and reset switch. These components are not available on a Raspberry Pi. Other components are beefed up, compared to the Raspberry Pi, such as 1 GB RAM and Gigabit Ethernet.
The connectors for the LCD LVDS interface and Camera interface are different. Current Raspberry Pi camera modules therefore do NOT work with a Banana Pi.
In addition, a Banana Pi may be able to connect external LVDS display, but not a Raspberry Pi since it never enabled its DSI connector (claims www.bananapi.org).

In summary, the Banana Pi currently has a smaller community size, less documentation and it will need to tune a OS distribution for their Allwinner SoC and its add-on hardware components in order to gain more popularity.

And where Raspberry improved on their original Model A with Model B and later Model B+, and designed their Model A all over again into the even tinier Model A+,
the Banana guys fell apart: the Banana Pi project has forked into two rival groups that are now pushing their own Banana Pi updates:

http://linuxgizmos.com/files/bpi_banana_pi_m2_details_front-sm.jpg (http://files.linuxgizmos.com/bpi_banana_pi_m2_details_front.jpg)
SinoVoip’s quad-core “Banana Pi M2 (http://www.bananapi.com/index.php/component/content/article?layout=edit&id=73),” which is announced but not yet shipping. Sadly it misses the Sata2.0 port of the original Banana Pi.
SoC – Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.0 GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU
System Memory – 1GB DDR3
Storage – Micro SD slot up to 64GB
Connectivity – 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (Realtek)
Video Output – HDMI, CVBS, and LVDS/RGB header
Audio Output – HDMI and 3.5mm stereo jack
Camera – CSI connector
USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports + micro USB port (power only)
Debugging – UART pins for serial console
Expansion Header – 40-pin R-Pi “somewhat” compatible header with 2×13 UART, I2C bus, SPI bus, CAN bus, ADC, PWM, 3.3V, 5V, ground
Misc – IR Receiver, power, reboot and reset buttons.
Power Supply – 5V in via MicroUSB (DC in only)
Dimensions – 92x60mm (R-Pi B+: 85×56 mm)
http://linuxgizmos.com/files/lemaker_banana_pro_details_front-sm.jpg (http://files.linuxgizmos.com/lemaker_banana_pro_details_front.jpg)
LeMaker’s recently released “Banana Pro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pro).”
SoC- Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor @ 1 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU
System Memory – 1 GB DDR3
Storage – micro SD card slot, SATA 2.0 connector
Video output – HDMI 1.4, 3.5mm jack for composite + stereo audio (AV), and MIPI DSI connector
Audio I/O – HDMI, AV jack, and on-board microphone
Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek RTL8211E/D) + 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (Realtek RTL8189ES)
USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x micro USB OTG, 1x micro USB for power
Debugging – 3-pin UART console
Expansion – Raspberry Pi B+ compatible headers (40-pin header), Camera connector (CSI), and LCD connector (DSI).
Misc – 3x on-board buttons for reset, power, and u-boot (FEL mode), 3x LEDs (power, Ethernet, and user), and IR receiver
Power – 5V/2A via micro USB port. AXP209 PMIC.
Dimensions – 92 x 60 mm
Weight – 45 g

[NeoGen]

Let the fruit Pi boards development begin...

Someone should release a Watermelon Pi in the summer. :)

[Dirk Broer]

Let the fruit Pi boards development begin...

You are being served: Orange Pi (http://liliputing.com/2014/12/orange-pi-allwinner-powered-raspberry-pi-clone.html)
http://cdn.liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/orange-pi-plus.jpg

CNX-Software (http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/12/22/orange-pi-board/) notes that there are three models of the Orange Pi. Two feature Allwinner A20 dual-core chips with ARM Mali-400 graphics, while a third has an Allwinner A31s quad-core processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 graphics. Each model features 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet, multiple USB ports, HDMI output, AV ports, and expansion headers. Each has 1GB of built-in RAM, but storage configurations vary from model to model, with some featuring built-in NAND flash storage as well as a microSD card slot, while others requires on microSD cards for all storage.
Prices range from about $40 to $69 and you can order an Orange Pi (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-pi-Beyond-Orange-Pi-Soc-Allwinner-A20-sun-7i-With-WIFI-The-official-start/32245918870.html), Orange Pi Mini (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-pi-mini/32256568226.html), or Orange Pi Plus from AliExpress (http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20150108130009&SearchText=orange+pi).

[Dirk Broer]

So it appears that these little mini boards come in sort of families with their own distinct hardware that more or less define their capabilities.

The Arduino Uno belongs to the Atmel ATmega328 family that BOINC-wise can best be left to connections -using shields or capes- with the following boards.
The well-known Raspberries belong to the Broadcom BCM2835 family, as does the -discontinued- Odriod-W.
The Beaglebone Black is part of the TI Sitara AM335x (http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/arm/sitara_arm_cortex_a_processor/sitara_arm_cortex_a8/am335x_arm_cortex_a8/products.page) family, as are some other -far too expensive- boards.
The original Cubieboard is member of the single-core Allwinner A10 (http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/processora/A10.html) family, as is the Hackberry A10, the MK802 II, the OLinuXino A10, the pcDuino Lite and the pcDuinov2
The original Banana Pi is member of the more capable dual-core Allwinner A20 (http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/processora/A20.html) family, as is the Banana Pro, the Cubieboards 2 and 3, the Hummingbird A20, the OLinuXino A20, the Orange Pi and Orange Pi Mini, the pcDuino3 and the pcDuino3Nano.
An even more capable family of Allwinners is the quad-core Allwinner A31 (http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/processora/A31.html) family, consisting so far of the of the Banana Pi M2, the Boardcon Compact A31, the Hummingbird A31 and the Orange Pi Plus.
A versatile family is based upon the Freescale i.MX6 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?code=IMX6X_SERIES&cof=0&am=0), which can be 'sandwiched' with dual or quad core CPU modules. Members here are e.g. the expensive Armstone A9, but also the Cubox (http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox-i-mini-computer/), the Raspberry-like HummingBoard (http://www.solid-run.com/products/hummingboard/), the RioTBoard (http://riotboard.org/), the UDOO (http://www.udoo.org/) and the WandBoard (http://www.wandboard.org/).

[NeoGen]

You are doing some serious research into the "mini-computing" field Dirk. :)

This is reminiscent of the late 70's / early 80's, when for example Sinclair Research developed the ZX Spectrum home microcomputer. I think over here in the US, the Amstrad and Commodore brand computers were more popular, but at least in Europe the ZX Spectrum was hugely popular. :)

[Dirk Broer]

It will be fun when the ARM cpus come in their '386'-era, the first x86 chip with real capabilities.
Bill Gates called the 286 'brain dead' as compared to the 386 and refused to develop OS/2 for it.
http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Microsoft-OS2-1.0-splash.pnghttp://www.appuntidigitali.it/site/wp-content/uploads/microsoft_os2_1_3_front.jpg
The ensulting row made MicroSoft leave the IBM OS/2 effort and begin Windows NT....
IBM bodly went on where no one had gone before and brought us
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/OS-2_W4.png

[NeoGen]

It is funny to read about OS/2 on Wikipedia...


The two companies had significant differences in culture and vision. Microsoft favored the open hardware system approach that contributed to its success on the PC; IBM sought to use OS/2 to drive sales of its own hardware, including systems that could not support the features Microsoft wanted. Microsoft programmers also became frustrated with IBM's bureaucracy and its use of lines of code to measure programmer productivity. IBM developers complained about the terseness and lack of comments in Microsoft's code, while Microsoft developers complained that IBM's code was bloated.
They were really having some fights about code back then :)

[Nflight]

I am following this post even though I am not saying much, As always Dirk your doing a great Job. NeoGen nice to see you active once more, its been awhile!

[NeoGen]

Yea, it's been too long. It's great to see you to Nflight. :)

But lets get the thread back in track again... Dirk, did you see the stack of Wandboards they call the Octopus (https://compeng.uni-frankfurt.de/index.php?id=171)?
Nine quad-core boards (36 cores total) all stacked neatly and running as a cluster, using only 100W of power.
https://compeng.uni-frankfurt.de/typo3temp/pics/9cda52d2ae.jpg

[Dirk Broer]

No, I hadn't seen that one yet, but did you see this 64-core Rasberry Pi cluster (https://plus.google.com/photos/104246654075464358345/albums/5799281824741061121/5799281904851355266?gpinv=AMIXal8qRVc_zOVNaXVZJR9_ 2NVvWKVZm1pLneESKfQy0gLSItDW7qHwgwg6FqoitOHZ_3jWDO a8Msjcd4oeRahakQKlEROAipPyCE1ApxpL8NlNB6z3nNM&cfem=1&pid=5799281904851355266&oid=104246654075464358345) yet? 64 x 4.5 Watt = 288 Watt, So Octopussy wins here!
One point that could have worked out better: "Since the nodes are stacked one above the other we use three fans to avoid heat nests and to dissipate the resulting heat."
So why stack them vertically? Try it horizontally instead...

BTW: Are there boards yet with the Allwinner A80 octo-core? Yep, but they're frigging expensive (http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Allwinner-A80-Optimusboard-Octa-Core-ARM-Cortex-A15-A7-A80-Android-4-4-Linux-Board-2G-8G-332199.html)!

[NeoGen]

Even if horizontally I would still not feel comfortable with the heat, I myself would probably point a fan or two at it, especially if they were running CPU intensive stuff :)
And no kidding, that Octocore is crazy expensive.

The only way to match up these little processors to a full blown x86 processor has got to be to put several of them in a cluster, but then I wonder what is the wattage to cobblestones ratio. Or in other words, if we had a little cluster that was capable of putting out the same performance of a regular x86 chip, would it be more power efficient than said x86 chip?

[Dirk Broer]

As heat tends to go up, I think that laying the tower on a side might be a way to prevent cooking an above positioned board, just my 2c.
And eight small fans can do wonders for this configuration.

The octocore is expensive, but prices are dropping like bricks, it used to be twice that a few months ago!

Efficiency-wise, I made that calculation once putting an 8-core pi cluster against i7 and 8-core FX.
The x86 won that hands down, being able to complete 8WUs in less time and using less wattage.
But then the Pi is no speedmonster...

[Dirk Broer]

A quick comparison between the major single-board computers available here for less than 60 Euro's:
343
(Click on the image for a better view)

[NeoGen]

Wow... that Banana Pi M2 seems really good. That PowerVR GPU especially catches my eye, I remember way back in the day (late 90's?) when PowerVR was a player in the GPU wars for a brief period, along with 3DFX Voodoo, S3, ATI and others... fun times back then. :)

[Dirk Broer]

I have at present a RasPiB+ (almost ready to BOINC) and a Banana Pro (just arrived) and a RasPi2 should arrive very soon.
The Banana Pi M2 is on my wish list, together with a BeagleBone Black. Then comes the fun part: building a Lego Diorama for them all :)

That the RasPiB+ isn't crunching yet is because I am bound to a cabled 10-base -ancient speed!- hub at the moment.
Planning to buy a 450 mbps USB WiFi stick for it...why else buy a board like this with 4 USB ports?
By means of using a USB-to-2x PS2 adapter, keyboard and mouse only take one USB port. So I've still three ports left (WiFi, QCN + Radioactive@Home?)...

[Nflight]

I am still following this conversation. I am intrigued at the simplicity yet the complexity being developed to accommodate such diversity in delivering efficiency. This efficiency is what is driving me to think that my Team ( Dirk your soon on that team kind sir) could bring together such a small working prototype then draw on our strengths to complete such a unit to be our extension to our working Product.

The Octopus standing tall is truly a nice arrangement but Dirk is right its better sitting horizontally allowing the air flow to pass through all openings and thus reducing the need for additional fans. My Science background is all about Heat Energy transfer, let me bring my two cents into this conversation and see what you think?

In heat transfer it is the amount of energy in that relates to the energy output and yes I am talking about actual heat not the unbeknownst puffing of our shoulders pronouncing my system is better than yours salute. With the thought of passing wind through the system to cool the boards why not remove all the blades of the fan altogether. In previous years I looked at wild arrangements of energy transfer called lifters - They in turn were observed by Mr Dyson (Vacuum Cleaner man from Sweden I think), who took lifters to the next step and patented the effort of high voltages across a boundary which created a system to pass polarized particles across those boundaries in which air flowed with out blades. Because I know that this effort works and has for years as lifters (who knew you could turn the devices on their sides and still blow air). To make things even better I bet you could withdraw the same content to push air but this time take apart one of these units that blow air from Mr Dyson and evaluate the efforts by converting a stationary amount of energy used to a variable rheostat which could translate into adjustable amounts of air, thus giving you the effect of less energy in and still keeping your systems cools.

Am I over your head in thinking like this or is everyone still with me?

Next time I post I will elaborate on the issue of a Boinc project I have in my head on this Project I am currently working on !

[Nflight]

I have one simple question I need answered, can you power a Raspberry pie from just a USB port? No outside additional pwr supply!

[Dirk Broer]

The Raspberry Pi B+ needs a powered USB connection, delivering 5V with 2A. Older models even can do with as little as 700-750mA, but have less USB ports to enable.
The A+ even only needs 600mA and this might be low enough to safely power it from a PC -nominally delivering about 500mA.
I use this powered USB hub to power my Pi's: http://ic.tweakimg.net/ext/i/1244905301.jpeg
Ports enough to power up to seven boards, so the planned combo of Pi B+, Pi 2, Banana Pro, Banana M2 and BeagleBone won't have problems. If I ever need more ports I can buy 2nd hand Bitcoin Miner's equipment -they use 10-, 20- and even 49-port hubs...

[Nflight]

Thanks Dirk one less worry about Raspberry systems! :icon_lol:

[Dirk Broer]

Found a series of articles on HTPC Guides about the Banana Pro vs the Raspberry Pi2:

Raspberry vs Banana Pi Benchmarks – Do SATA and Gigabit Matter? (http://www.htpcguides.com/raspberry-vs-banana-pi-benchmarks-sata-gigabit-matter/)
Raspberry Pi 2 vs Banana Pi Pro unRAR PAR2 Benchmarks (http://www.htpcguides.com/raspberry-pi-2-vs-banana-pi-pro-unrar-par2-benchmarks/)

[NeoGen]

To anyone who thinks Gigabit won't do that much of a difference on one of those machines... oh yes it does! I've always wondered why the Raspberry Pi came with 10/100 adapter... doesn't make sense these days, if anything I would even want 10Gbit for 2015!

And on processing power... the Banana Pi Pro beats the Raspberry with a stick in almost everything you throw at them.:)

[Dirk Broer]

As was to be expected -based upon the specs- the Banana Pi BPI-M2 performs even better than the Banana Pro or the Raspberry Pi2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-9DzsX9hFM&feature=youtu.be
Sinovoip, one of the two companies that brought us the original Banana Pi (the other is Lemaker, now active with the Banana Pro)
has pulled an ace out of their sleeve with the Banana Pi BPI-M2 and in the meantime have brought out a Banana Pi BPI-M1+ too,
which differs from the Banana Pro mainly in the colour of the PCB and the fact that the Allwinner A20 is on topside where the Banana Pro had it on the backside.

[Dirk Broer]

You are being served: Orange Pi (http://liliputing.com/2014/12/orange-pi-allwinner-powered-raspberry-pi-clone.html)
CNX-Software (http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/12/22/orange-pi-board/) notes that there are three models of the Orange Pi. Two feature Allwinner A20 dual-core chips with ARM Mali-400 graphics, while a third has an Allwinner A31s quad-core processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 graphics. Each model features 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet, multiple USB ports, HDMI output, AV ports, and expansion headers. Each has 1GB of built-in RAM, but storage configurations vary from model to model, with some featuring built-in NAND flash storage as well as a microSD card slot, while others requires on microSD cards for all storage.
Prices range from about $40 to $69 and you can order an Orange Pi (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-pi-Beyond-Orange-Pi-Soc-Allwinner-A20-sun-7i-With-WIFI-The-official-start/32245918870.html), Orange Pi Mini (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-pi-mini/32256568226.html), or Orange Pi Plus from AliExpress (http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20150108130009&SearchText=orange+pi).

And they are not sitting on their hands at Orange Pi either: they have brought out Mark 2 versions of their boards, differing in having an Allwinner H3 instead of the A20 (orange Pi Mini and Orange Pi) or A31s (originally meant for the Orange Pi Plus).
What makes the H3 -another ARM Cortex-A7 chip- tick?

It runs at 1600 MHz instead of 1000 MHz, like the A20 or A31s.
Manufactured using a 28 nm process, while the A20 was made using a 55 nm process and the A31s used a 40 nm process.


The new Orange Pi Plus:
http://www.orangepi.org/orangepiplus/H3shuoming.jpg

The new Orange Pi 2:
http://www.orangepi.org/orangepi2/op2.jpg

The new Orange Pi Mini 2:
http://www.orangepi.org/orangepimini2/opmini2.jpg

[Dirk Broer]

The new Banana Pi M3, compared with it's family and it's opponents:
https://scontent-ams2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/11143687_438657279639142_6617780273462653457_o.jpg

[Brucifer]

Very interesting! :-)

[Jason1478963]

Will you be testing one of these when they become available?

[Brucifer]

I've got a raspberry pi but now I guess I'll have to get one of them there banana things. :-)

[Dirk Broer]

A Raspberry Pi B+ or a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B?
The first has an -outdated, but still useful- single-core ARM-11 CPU, the latter a much more capable quad ARM Cortex-A7.

Them Banana thingies come in single, dual, quad and even octo-core...so far all with ARM Cortex-A7 based Allwinner SOCs, as is the case with the likewise equipped Orange Pi's and PCDuino's.

Then there's HummingBoards (http://solid-run.com/freescale-imx6-family/hummingboard/) (single, dual and quads), CuBoxes (http://solid-run.com/freescale-imx6-family/cubox-i/) -wasn't Drezha (http://www.amdusers.com/forum/member.php/425-drezha) already busy with them?- (both from Solid-run (http://solid-run.com/freescale-imx6-family/) and using the same ARM Cortex-A9 based i.MX6 SOMs)

And there are Odroids from HardKernel (http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php), in various forms too, the XU3 and XU4 having Samsung Exynos5422 (A Cortex-A15 2.1GHz quad core and Cortex-A7 1.5GHz quad core combined in a big.LITTLE implemention) SOCs. The Odroid-C1 has an quad core Amlogic ARM Cortex-A5 though.

Our friends with TSBT swear by AndroidTVs, which they crack open for better cooling (http://www.dunadd.co.uk/seti/forum/viewtopic.php?f=136&t=2020&p=23535&hilit=toaster#p23535) "The tronsmart boxes I bought, ripped out of their cases and run on top of a computer case with top fan extraction in the infamous toaster rack are still just chugging along. Neither give huge points etc, but good solid constant crunching for negligible running costs". Mostly with Rockchip RK3188 (http://system-on-a-chip.specout.com/l/310/Rockchip-RK3188) or RK3288 (http://system-on-a-chip.specout.com/l/1112/Rockchip-RK3288) CPUs.

Chris has a octacore Cubieboard4 (http://www.eleduino.com/Cubieboard4CCA80.html) with an Allwinner A80 that outperforms an i7 on SubsetSum, read our FaceBook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/AMDUsersTeam/)...

[Brucifer]

the B+ :-)

[AMDave]

Wow. The mini 2 is really dense.
There are some wifi and DTV usb dongles that will not fit close together.
But the designers were smart and created the extra width by placing the ethernet port in between the 2 usb ports.
Clever.
Clearly some thought went into the design.

[Brucifer]

Lol. Almost like someone on the design team actually plays with the product and is aware of conflicts that could arise!! :-)

[Nflight]

You clearly have my attention and have spent more time reading and updating myself with these posts. Nice Job Dirk, and I too am following along as you progressively display the nuances of the tiny computer. Very happy with what has been displayed so far, keep going! All eyes forward... :)

[Brucifer]

So is anyone using any of these to crunch with?? If so, what and what project(s)??

[Dirk Broer]

Chris has an active Banana Pi M2 quad running under Android at the moment, I am readying a Banana Pro dual-core.
For these ARM devices Android is the OS of choice, but I might try Raspbian for the Banana Pro (http://www.lemaker.org/article-17-1.html) too,
that would give me the chance to test the Pro against the Raspberry Pi2.

Projects known to work with the mini's include Asteroids, Enigma, Seti, Yoyo (OGR cruncher), Citizen Science Grid (SubsetSum), WCG, Einstein, MilkyWay.
Look at this posting (http://www.amdusers.com/forum/showthread.php/10381-Beaglebone-Black?p=79254#post79254) for projects running on ARM using Android.

[Brucifer]

Thank you Dirk! :-)

[Dirk Broer]

I've got a raspberry pi but now I guess I'll have to get one of them there banana things. :-)

After the invasion of the Raspberry Pies there followed a rain of other fruit pies, the Banana Pi the most persistent so far.
Offered by two companies (BPI and Lemaker, who seems to have split up after the intial M1 and R1 models that they made -and still sell- together) they have rows of Banana's waiting for us.
The specs -at least- are good:

Feature
Banana Pi M1
Banana Pi M1+
Banana Pro
Banana Pi M2
Banana Pi M2+
Banana Pi M3
Banana Pi R1
Size
92mm x
60mm
92mm x
60mm
92mm x
60mm
92mm x
60mm
65mm x
65mm
92mm x
60mm
148mm x
100mm
SOC
Allwinner
A20
Allwinner
A20
Allwinner
A20
Allwinner
A31s
Allwinner
H3
Allwinner
A83t
Allwinner
A20
CPU
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-A7
Architecture
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
ARMv7-A
Speed
1000 MHz
1000 MHz
1000 MHz
1200 MHz
1200 MHz
1800 MHz
1000 MHz
Cores
2
2
2
4
4
8
2
RAM
1024 MB
1024 MB
1024 MB
1024 MB
1024 MB
2048 MB
1024 MB
RAM/Core
512 MB
512 MB
512 MB
256 MB
256 MB
256 MB
512 MB
USB 2.0
2
2
2
4
2
2
2
LAN
10/100/1000
10/100/1000
10/100/1000
10/100/1000
10/100/1000
10/100/1000
4x 10/100/1000 LAN
1x 10/100/1000 WAN
WiFi
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bluetooth
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
SATA
1x SATA-150
1x SATA-300
1x SATA-300
No
No
1x SATA-300
1x SATA-150
eMMc
No
No
No
No
8GB
8GB
No

Despite being not as popular as the Raspberries, the Bananas do have some claim to fame.

The original Banana Pi -now called the M1 and with two improved variants, Pro and M1+ - was a ARMv7 dual core with 1 GB RAM, when the original Raspberry Pi B still was a ARMv6 single core with 512 MB -and the original Raspberry Pi A still was a ARMv6 single core with 256 MB.
The Banana Pi M2 already was a ARMv7 quad core -with higher clock speed- before the Raspberry Pi 2 arrived.
The Banana Pi M3 is an ARMv7 octa-core, a feat which Raspberry has not managed -yet.
The Banana Pi M2+ can be compared with the Raspberry Pi A+ (format-wise), but here the advantage is again with the Banana: it is a ARMv7 quad core with 1 GB RAM, while the Raspberry Pi A+ still is a ARMv6 single core with 256 MB.

Me personally, I am waiting for a Banana Pi R2, featuring all extra's (quad- or octo-core, WiFi, Bluetooth, eMMc, SATA-300).

[Dirk Broer]

My Banana Pro has come to life!
http://wiki.lemaker.org/images/8/86/BananaPro_800_460.jpg
After my Raspberry Pi 2 -the one that runs Ubuntu Mate 16.04- suffered from a corrupted SD-card -most likely from either the screensaver or the rotating background picture, disable that feature!- and crashed, I decided to try the Banana Pro with a new, better SD card fitted with the latest Bananian. Now I am trying to get BOINC installed....even when Bananian is no sucess -as it looks like now- I can now install e.g. Raspbian, or Ubuntu Mate.

Edit 1: Right now it is updating from Ubuntu Mate 15.04 to 15.10....edit: from 15.10 to 16.04
Edit 2: That was not such a bright idea, as the kernel remains at 3.4.103 and gets out of sync with other software. Back to 15.04, and update the kernel first then.

When fitted with a bad image -any image made with the aid of the Allwinner utility PhoenixCard in my case- only a red light will shine, and you get no video. I was about to bin the board.
A good image -so far tried Bananian (a very minimalistic Debian) and Ubuntu Mate- gives red, blue and green lights when booting, and video afterwards.

I am impressed by the BOINC benchmarks for this ARM Cortex-A7 board, up to 565 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU and 1995 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU, but it is a pity there are only two such cores. Still, it kicks the s**t out of the -single core- Raspberry Pi B+ and Beaglebone Black and even has a better performance per core than the Pi 2 quad-core (Enigma in a little more than 3 hours!).

BTW, I am less impressed with the stability of Ubuntu Mate 16.04 for Raspberry -it keeps trashing the SD card- and the WiFi connection of Ubuntu Mate 16.04 for the Banana.
Once upgraded to 16.04 it tends to loose the WiFi connectivity.

[Dirk Broer]

What I ultimately want for my SBC boards is a set-and-forget way of operating. I want to power them up, install the OS and BOINC, point them to their projects and check on them once a month or so. This however was not possible with Ubuntu Mate (http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-15508-1-1.html) on the Banana Pro, nice experience as it was to use a full desktop on an ARM development board though.

Next stop is OpenSuse (http://www.lemaker.org/product-bananapro-download-14.html) -too old (13.1, won't update. Too much unneeded stuff as well),
then it is ArchLinux (http://www.lemaker.org/product-bananapro-download-11.html), this image went wrong because the ArchLinux servers seem unreachable right now, at least from the LeMaker supplied -old- image.
Up to Gentoo (https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/) then, but no longer via a LeMaker image!

If that fails, it is back to Bananian...

[AMDave]

You could set up a PXE host (even in a VirtualBox) and PXE boot all oof your SBCs from the host
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/48af52/raspberry_pi_3_usb_and_pxe_network_boot_boot/

That way you can put together various OS/App configs in a single easy to access place and try them out on all of your SBCs very quickly.
But since you want to set and forget, then just make them headless and install the server version without the desktop. BOINC mgr won't run, of course, but you would not need to, just run the client and RPC to it from one of your AMD workstations.
You will learn a lot by doing this.

Fedora/REDHAT/CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu LTSP server spins already exist almost fully configured (better configured than they used to be)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPQuickInstall

Also there is another github project called FOG which allows you to d/l & install & run, however the built-in default PXE image is likely to be 32/64 intel/AMD so you'd have to go the extra step and create an ARM image for your SBCs which is what FOG is good at, it will quite happily allow you to build a Win## (any version) image and PXE that to your devices machine.
This is how many thin-client boxes are used in the work-place although the host configurations vary as there are many ways to serve PXE to the network.
https://www.google.com.au/?client=ubuntu#tbm=vid&q=how+to+setup+a+pxe+server

Some folk are PXEing their XBMC to SBCs & TCs around the site so they have the same GUI in all locations.

EDIT - I see I mixed my technologies again. Better trying FOG first which is PXE of images over the LAN, where-as the linux LTSP editions are full LTSP over PXE and, while they can server images over PXE, they require quite a bit more work if you want to fully leverage the capabilities and benefits of LTSP, like using a single btrfs stored linux OS to server to all of your different hardware which is very fast to the clients and a massive reduction on disk space and RAM on the host. Or you could just go the old rout which I didn't mention which is to connect the PXE boot devices to server based sessions that run on the server and not on the device (real thin-client) but thats really for better desktop experience than the TC would normally provide. Lots of possibilities.

[NeoGen]

I was looking around on google for the possibility of building a little cluster out of those boards, and some people have done it indeed
http://www.owncluster.de/2015/07/08/hardware-for-a-banana-pi-cluster/
http://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2016/how-build-your-own-raspberry-pi-cluster

That might be complex to achieve but interesting to play with, in the end it should be fully controlled as a single node but have dozens of cores and a large stack of RAM depending on how many of them you cluster together.


But then by accident I stumbled on a site with even smaller boards... have you seen the NanoPi's?
http://www.nanopi.org/index2.html

[Dirk Broer]

I was looking around on google for the possibility of building a little cluster out of those boards, and some people have done it indeed
http://www.owncluster.de/2015/07/08/hardware-for-a-banana-pi-cluster/
http://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2016/how-build-your-own-raspberry-pi-cluster

I've looked into similair cases, but I've yet to find one where the cluster can share both WUs and memory (e.g. work on one WCG WU over 12 cores by using the RAM of the entire 40-board cluster)


That might be complex to achieve but interesting to play with, in the end it should be fully controlled as a single node but have dozens of cores and a large stack of RAM depending on how many of them you cluster together.

It is amazing to see how fast a question as "What would you do with a 120-Raspberry Pi Cluster? (https://resin.io/blog/what-would-you-do-with-a-120-raspberry-pi-cluster/)"
can be translated into "What would you do with a 15-Banana Pi M3 Cluster?" and getting more performance for less wattage.


But then by accident I stumbled on a site with even smaller boards... have you seen the NanoPi's? http://www.nanopi.org/index2.html

I hadn't yet, but they are small in both size (NanoPi-2 (http://www.nanopi.org/NanoPi-2_Feature.html) and NanoPi-2-Fire (http://www.nanopi.org/NanoPi-2-Fire_Feature.html) are hardly bigger than a Raspberry Pi Zero)
and price (The quad-core Allwinner H3 NanoPi-M1 (http://www.nanopi.org/NanoPi-M1_Feature.html) can be bought for a price as low as 13 US$, the octo-core Nanopi-M3 (http://www.nanopi.org/NanoPi-M3_Feature.html) is,
together with the NanoPi-2 and NanoPi-2-Fire, the most expensive at only 32 US$)
The models M1, M2 and M3 all slightly differ in size (64 mm x 50-56-60 mm, but are generally smaller than the Raspberry Pi A+ (65 mm x 56.5 mm).

[AMDave]

sounds more like a Beowulf Cluster, then.
Try this:
http://coen.boisestate.edu/ece/files/2013/05/Creating.a.Raspberry.Pi-Based.Beowulf.Cluster_v2.pdf
and obviously further examples about:
https://www.google.com.au/?client=ubuntu#q=beowulf+cluster+raspberry+pi
but then you need to be compiling and running MPI coded applications to effectively run across the nodes. BOINC & BOINC apps will not do that for you as they are single threaded by design.
There are a very few parallel apps but in most cases it would be recommended that the code be recompiled on the cluster to suit that cluster due to most Beowulf clusters being very different to each other.
https://www.google.com.au/?client=ubuntu#q=BOINC+on+beowulf+cluster
So you would only build one if you had planned ahead and are well prepared to write / re-compile apps for your cluster.
That said there are many MPI schedulers and utilities available (instead of BOINC) for Beowulf clusters.
I'm interested to see where you go with this.
I'd more likely go with a network of individual devices, using a PXE host to manage the images so you can PXE boot the SBCs / TCs from the host then they don't each need a HDD and you can select whatever image you want as you boot them (with a temporarily attached screen) or preset with a script and monitor each remotely. But that's just me.
I did build a 2 node Beowulf for fun and self-education about a decade ago (probably a lot longer - sshh!) with old hardware and got something parallel running on it, Folding / Distributed folding I think it was.
Wow I even did post briefly about my attempt when I started the LTSP install - http://www.amdusers.com/forum/showthread.php/1530-Holy-Crap?p=21911&highlight=beowulf#post21911
(11 years ago - Tempus fugit!) but not much after that
I see in some PMs and archived posts that I was still having compatibility issues a year later and reworking it - url not available.
But it was hard work and the machines got really hot and although the parallelism was interesting to look at, most of the time it did not use the resource of the whole cluster, about a 1/4 of it if I recall. YMMV.
more chit-chat again in 2006 - http://www.amdusers.com/forum/showthread.php/1993-Redmond-Magazine?highlight=beowulf
Of course the software and utilities and instructions are all much better and more available now and more widely in use.
You can build a "render wall" very cheaply these days. :)

[Dirk Broer]

So far the easiest solution -given the limitations of most BOINC applications- seems to be running BOINCTasks on a x86-64 machine and run the ARM boards -headless- through BOINCTasks.

[AMDave]

Folding no longer support multi-node clusters using MPI
http://folding.stanford.edu/home/faq/faq-smp
Clients are now SMP which means running on a single machine with large numbers of cores / blades.
The rational is that communication between cluster nodes is too slow.

[AMDave]

There are other reasons for building a small cluster, like thus
http://diybigdata.net/2016/06/installing-hadoop-onto-an-odroid-xu4-cluster/

[Dirk Broer]

I finally seem to have my Banana Pro running stable under Ubuntu Mate 15.04 (no more tries to upgrade it), using an old 80486 heatsink (45x45x15 mm)
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSxpZoWWq0ftyEdrXoSI1Oew0qK-QanjxYWPCN7lE6UPItl0OMO9Q
that covers both the Allwinner A20 SOC and the RAM chips. Temps are 55 Celsius / 132 Fahrenheit / 328 Kelvin.

I may have called the BeagleBone Black the total and utter king of blinkenlights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights) before -due to the eternally flashing blue LED lights- but the Banana Pro comes as a close 2nd with a eternally burning red, a constantly flashing green and a less frequently flashing blue LED. Now for a casing that fits the relatively huge heatsink.....

[Nflight]

Gentlemen this might help in your robust enthusiasm of Parallel computing: http://daugerresearch.com/vault/index.shtml :blob3:

[Dirk Broer]

Banana Pi have released yet another version of their quad-core M2, the M2 Ultra. What is the difference between these three M2 boards now?
http://www.banana-pi.com/tp/image/20150402/20150402044292979297.jpghttp://www.banana-pi.com/tp/image/20160229/20160229182276487648.jpg

Feature/Board
Banana Pi M2
Banana Pi M2+
Banana Pi M2 Ultra


Size

92mm x
60mm

65mm x
65mm

92mm x
60mm


SOC

Allwinner
A31s

Allwinner
H3

Allwinner
R40


CPU

ARM
Cortex-A7

ARM
Cortex-A7

ARM
Cortex-A7


Architecture

ARMv7-A

ARMv7-A

ARMv7-A


Speed

1200 MHz

1200 MHz

? MHz


Cores

4

4

4


RAM

1024 MB

1024 MB

2048 MB


RAM/Core

256 MB

256 MB

512 MB


L2 Cache

1024 KB

512 KB

? KB


GPU

Dual core PowerVR SGX54 MP2 @350MHz

Dual core Mali-400 MP2 @600MHz

Dual core Mali-400 MP2 @600MHz


USB 2.0

4

2

3 (1 via GPIO header)


LAN

10/100/1000

10/100/1000

10/100/1000


WiFi

802.11b/g/n

802.11b/g/n

802.11b/g/n


Bluetooth

No

4.0

4.0


SATA

No

No

Yes


eMMc

No

8GB

8GB (standard)
16/32/64GB (optional)



http://forum.banana-pi.org/uploads/default/original/2X/6/61ddb3855343e58797b8eba6258265556b14d2ef.jpg
So far too much '?' with the Ultra to be really able pointing out the best board for you, but the M2 Ultra does have some nice features.

[Dirk Broer]

The Banana Pi family differs hugely from that of the Raspberry Pi. The arch version (nowadays called Banana Pi BPI-M1 (http://www.banana-pi.org/m1.html)) was April 2014 brought out as an attempt at a slightly better (and bigger) Raspberry competitor (http://raspi.tv/2014/banana-pi-review-first-impressions), offering a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU (when the raspberry still did with a ARM11), Gigabit ethernet, an IR sensor and a SATA connector, amongst others. It lacked however the communiuty, software and hardware support of the Raspberry.
https://www.intorobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/banana-pi.jpg

Within the first Banana Pi generation are two branches that appeared around the time Raspberry brought out their improved Model B+. The first to emerge was in October 2014 the LeMaker-produced Banana Pro, followed April 2015 by the Sinovoip-produced Banana Pi BPI-M1+ (http://www.banana-pi.org/m1plus.html). Both companies had produced the original Banana Pi BPI-M1 and another variant: the Banana Pi BPI-R1 (http://www.banana-pi.org/r1.html) (October 2014, basically a Banana Pi BPI-M1 with four additional ethernet ports and WiFi). The differences between the Banana Pi Pro and the Banana Pi BPI-M1+ are mainly in the colour of the PCB and the placement of the Allwinner A20 SOC. LeMaker has it at the same place as the original Banana Pi (at the rearside), Sinovoip aka Banana-Pi.Org having the SOC on top.

But in 2015 Raspberry.org was developping the quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU equipped Raspberry Pi 2B, causing Banana-Pi.org to responded in April 2015 with the likewise (Allwinner A31s) equipped Banana Pi BPI-M2 (http://www.banana-pi.org/m2.html) (since discontinued), and in November 2015 with the octo-core ARM Cortex-A7 (Allwinner A83t) equipped Banana Pi BPI-M3 (http://www.banana-pi.org/m3.html) and in November 2016 the Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra (http://www.banana-pi.org/m2u.html).

Banana-Pi.org brings out a still increasing greater number of boards, such as in April 2016 the Raspberry Pi A+ like Banana Pi BPI-M2+ (http://www.banana-pi.org/m2plus.html) -where Banana-Pi.org again manages to offer much more features than the competing Raspberry product, such as a quad-core Cortex A7 (Allwinner H3), 8GB onboard eMMC, WiFi and BlueTooth and 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet. BTW: the M2+ comes in H3, Edu, H2+ ad H5 variants, of which the last one, the H5 is a hybrid 2nd/3rd generation banana as it features a 64-bit quad-core Cortex-A53 SOC. For those than can do with even less features there's since November 2017 the Banana Pi BPI-M2M (http://www.banana-pi.org/m2m.html) aka Banana Pi M2 Magic. Other raspberry-inspired Banana boards are the Banana Pi BPI-M2 Berry (http://www.banana-pi.org/m2ub.html) (brought out in May 2017, finally having the same size as the Raspberry Pi family) and the Banana Pi BPI-Zero (http://www.banana-pi.org/bpi-zero.html), that packs a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 on a board the size of a Raspberry Zero (where that board still has to do with a single-core ARM11). The Banana Pi BPI-M64 (http://www.banana-pi.org/m64.html#m64std), introduced in November 2016 was no doubt inspired by the ARM Cortex-A53 CPU equipped Raspberry Pi 3B, as it features a likewise Allwinner A64 or R18, depending on the sub-version.
https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/bpi-m2-ultra-open-source-single-board-computer/content/assets/Banana%20Pi%20series%20comparison_20170612.jpg

But Banana-Pi.org does quite original things too. They improved upon the Banana Pi BPI-R1 router with their 2017 Banana Pi BPI-R2 (http://www.banana-pi.org/r2.html), offering a MediaTek MT7623N (a Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7), Mali 450 MP4 GPU, 2G DDR3 SDRAM and a Mini PCIE interface. Another router-like product is the Banana PI BPI-W2 (http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/banana-pi-bpi-w2-with-realtek-rtd1296-chip-design/3924). They also have since April 2015 the Banana Pi BPI-G1 (http://www.banana-pi.org/g1.html), which is a next generation of IoT hub with WiFi, Zigbee, and BT support. For those even deeper in the internet-of-Things (IoT) there's the Banana Pi BPI-D1 (http://www.banana-pi.org/d1.html), a SBC/camera combo


LeMaker has stopped making Banana called products after the Banana Pro and their 2nd generation now has music-inspired names such as the vaguely Raspberry compute module-like LeMaker Guitar (http://www.lemaker.org/product-guitar-specification.html), the LeMaker Piano (http://www.lemaker.org/product-piano-specification.html) and the LeMaker HiKey (http://www.lemaker.org/product-hikey-specification.html). These boards not even remotely look Raspberry-like.

[Dirk Broer]

Sinovoip, producer of Banana Pi boards, has a new flag ship in their M (for main?) line, perhaps unsurprisingly called the Banana Pi M6 (https://www.banana-pi.org/en/banana-pi-sbcs/141.html) (don't get distracted by the header showing a M4).
The surprise lies more in the chosen SOC: a Senary (Synaptics) VS680, a quad-core Cortex-A73 (@2.1GHz) with a Cortex-M3 real-time security core @ 250 MHz (-so useless for computing), an Imagination PowerVR Series9XE GE9920 GPU, and a NPU for AI up to 6.75 Tops.
The board further has 4GB LPDDR4, 16GB eMMC flash and offers a M.2 E-Key for PCIe or MIPI CSI. There are 4 USB 3.0 ports, 1 GbE ethernet and 1 Micro HDMI-in and 1 Micro HDMI-out. Power Source needs to be PD(?) 5V@3A, administered via USB 3.0 Type-C.
The board looks like this (click to enlarge):
https://i.postimg.cc/56hcWq4V/Banana-Pi-BPI-M6-interface.jpg (https://postimg.cc/56hcWq4V)
The VS680/SN3680 seems to be a quite capable SOC -but these specs (https://ai-benchmark.com/ranking_IoT.html) make me want a SBC with a Qualcomm QCS605 instead.
More info:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/11/24/banana-pi-bpi-m6-sbc-senarytech-sn3680-quad-core-cortex-a73-ai-processor/
https://linuxgizmos.com/banana-pi-introduces-senarytech-sn3680-based-sbc/