FreeBSD The Power to Serve

FreeBSD Driver Development for BananaPi-R64

Contact: Martin Filla <freebsd@sysctl.cz>

Introduction

The Banana Pi R64 is a MediaTek MT7622-based development board (ARM Cortex-A53, dual-core ~1.35 GHz) featuring 4× Gigabit LAN, 1× Gigabit WAN, Wi-Fi (4×4n), Bluetooth 5.0, and multiple peripheral interfaces (UART, SPI, I²C, GPIO, SATA, mini-PCIe, eMMC, etc.).

Current State of FreeBSD Support

  • Implemented so far:

    • UART driver

    • Clock management (clocks)

    • Pinctrl/gpio driver – in active development gpio part

    • Storage controllers (eMMC/SD/MMC) driver

    • Ethernet Switch mt7531 driver

    • Ethernet mt7622 driver

Other essential components—Ethernet, USB, SATA, Wi-Fi, etc.—are not yet implemented.

Technical Context and Significance

Support for Banana Pi R64 in FreeBSD is in the early stages—UART and clocks drivers exist but ppl clock is under development, gpio is under development — while most critical subsystems remain unimplemented.

Development roadmap

  • Implement missing drivers

    • USB (XHCI/OTG)

    • SATA / AHCI

    • Wi-Fi (likely MediaTek MT7615)

    • GPIO subsystems

Conclusion

Support for Banana Pi R64 in FreeBSD is in the early stages—UART and clocks drivers exist but ppl clock is under development, gpio is under development—while most critical subsystems remain unimplemented. Publishing working code and artifacts, plus active collaboration with the FreeBSD community, will be essential to bring this board toward usable status under FreeBSD.


Last modified on: November 30, 2025 by Lorenzo Salvadore