Introduction The Banana Pi BPI-R4 is marketed as a next-generation single-board router with support for Wi-Fi 7, dual 10GbE SFP ports and Quad Port Switch, 1GbE/2.5GbE(when supported) per port with Switch fabric, and a quad-core ARM architecture and 8GB Ram. But can it really deliver the speeds

Introduction AKADATA LIMITED recently began transitioning to the Amazon Eero Max 7, a high-speed Wi-Fi 7 mesh device. During this process, an interesting challenge arose: the Eero Max 7 requires a mobile phone or tablet with internet connectivity to complete its setup. This situation creates a practical dilemma. For users

Update July 2025 The guide below remains valid, but our journey continued! We upgraded to a 10 GbE network card and transitioned our Zen PPPoE connection to OpenWrt for maximum performance. Details and configuration are included in the errata at the end of this article, should you wish to achieve

Many sysadmins and homelab builders using Open vSwitch (OVS) have encountered this problem: "My OVS bridge shows dozens of ports that don’t exist anymore." This usually happens when virtual machines (VMs) start and stop, leaving stale port entries behind. Over time, these ghost ports clutter the bridge

Work in Progress – testing ongoing Director: AKADATA LIMITED Source thread: https://forum.banana-pi.org/t/bpi-r4-frank-w-bpi-r4-u-boot-build-flash-nand/23112 Frank Wunderlich’s repositories supply the base code and build scripts referenced below. Status * Verification currently under way on two production boards. * Once both units pass cold‑boot and 24‑hour memory‑stress,

Introduction A previous reflection noted that technology mirrors the soul of society rather than mastering it. The mirror now widens to a familiar crossroads: the high‑street McDonald’s. Lunchtime traffic flows past bright self‑order screens that promise speed, yet an unexpected prompt appears — “Add a none-optional takeaway bag:

Introduction Remember the thrill of sliding a glossy white rainbow‑labelled data cassette into a Commodore Vic‑20, or the Oric-1 seen above and waiting for the blinking cursor to burst into colour? That humble 8-bit machine, today's bright light bulb more powerful than it, sparked the imagination

Building Linux kernels on embedded devices like the Banana Pi R4 can be painfully slow. Out-of-the-box, a full kernel build on the R4 can take over two hours. Fortunately, we can massively accelerate this by offloading compilation to powerful x86_64 machines using distcc and caching results with ccache. Here’

By: Director - AKADATA LIMITED This article is very much a work in progress and will continue evolving over the coming days as we explore and document the BPI-R4 — with the ultimate goal of unleashing Wi-Fi 7 capabilities and achieving up to 34Gbps bandwidth. If you’re curious about owning

Introduction: Many call partial differential equations (PDEs) complex or even impossible to solve without deep mathematical background. Yet here we will show that solving a 2D Poisson equation, a foundational PDE in physics and engineering, is not only possible but understandable. With patience and pattern, we replace fear with insight.