Banana Pro is a Go running PiAware

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So I picked up a new Banana Pro from Ebay last week. Quick feature list:

  • Soc: Allwinner® A20(sun 7i)
  • CPU: ARM® Cortex™-A7 Dual-Core1GHz (ARM v7 instruction set)
  • GPU” Mali400MP2 Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1 (hardware acceleration support
  • SDRAM: 1GB DDR3 (shared with GPU)
  • Power: 5V @ 2A via MicroUSB (DC in Only) and/or MicroUSB (OTG)
  • PMU:AXP209
  • Low-level perpherials
  • 40 Pins Header
  • 28×GPIO, some of which can be used for specific functions including UART, I2C, SPI, PWM, CAN, I2S, SPDIF, LRADC, ADC, LINE-IN,FM-IN,HP-IN.
  • On board Network10/100/1000Mbps ethernet (Realtek RTL8211E/D)
  • Onboard Wifi Module: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n

All Seems Stable on Lemaker’s Lubuntu image with:

​root@lemaker:~# lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Release: 14.04 Codename: trusty

Instructions below assume you have previously flashed a MicroSD card with the lubuntu image from Lemaker, booted, and connected to your Banana Pro device with SSH, and have a solid understanding of linux/debian cli/console configuration. The PiAware project pretty much handles everything else for you.

A quick and (very) dirty interfaces template you can edit and use (tested only under lemaker’s lubuntu image!)

/etc/network/interfaces:

# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
# Include files from /etc/network/interfaces.d:
source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# wireless network interface
auto wlan3
iface wlan3 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid "your_AP_SSID"
wpa-psk "your_wifi_passwd"
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway [your gw ip]
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8

#Original config, left for reference
#allow-hotplug wlan3
#iface wlan3 inet manual
#wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Notes:

IMPORTANT: Install raspi-copy-and-fills BEFORE building piaware (resolves missing raspbian packages lubuntu is missing, link below, use latest available)

wget http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/r/raspi-copies-and-fills/raspi-copies-and-fills_0.4-1_armhf.deb

Then: 

 dpkg -i raspi-copies-and-fills/raspi-copies-and-fills_0.4-1_armhf.deb
  • Then download and follow piaware install from here: http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/install (choose the ‘PiAware for Dump1090’ Tab for instruction on the remainder of the install process)
  • Plug in your ads-b antenna to your ads-b dongle, plug to your Banana Pro
  • Reboot the device, for good measure.
  • Once rebooted, browse to your http://YourBananaProIPaddress:8080 and enjoy MOAR PLANES with the Banana pro’s beefier CPU (click to enlarge):

Enjoy!

Screenshot - 01222015 - 02:53:45 PM

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