Banana PI Image Download

How to install a Banana Pi Operating System image on an SD card. You will need another computer (MAC / PC) with an SD card reader to install the image.

Download The Image

You might download the image using Banana PI offical webpage Lemaker.  And it contains varies images including Raspbian / Bananian / any many other linux distribution.

Here is the direct download link:
All Image
http://www.lemaker.org/resources/9-38/image_files.html

Raspbian

http://www.lemaker.org/resources/9-81/raspbian_for_bananapi.html

Bananian

http://www.lemaker.org/resources/9-116/bananian_for_bananapi.html

Format the SD Card

You might want to format your SD card to FAT32 before you write the image.
SDFormatter is a great free tool for format the SD Card in both Windows / MAC.

SDFormatter
MAC: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/eula_mac/
PC:  https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/eula_windows/

Format is simple, just install and follow the instruction you will find it is easily done in few minutes.

Writing an image to the SD card

With the image file of the distribution of your choice, you need to use an image writing tool to install it on your SD card.  Most image download from lemaker.org are compressed into .tgz format which need to extract twice in windows / MAC machine.


Steps:

1. Unzip .tgz using 7-ZIP(windows) / Unarchiver(mac)
2. Unzip .tar using 7-ZIP again, you will get the .img file.
3. (Windows) Write the image using Win32 Disk Imager, Download
   (MAC) Use "Terminal":

ref: http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/

4.  Reject the card safely.

How to buy Raspberry PI / Banana PI

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools. (Ref: Wiki, Raspberry PI Official Website).

Banana Pi is a single-board computer made in China. It can run Android, Ubuntu and Debian. Raspbian can be run, though the CPU complies with the requirements of the Debian armhf port.^[1] It uses the Allwinner A20 SoC and as such is mostly covered by the linux-sunxi port.
Banana Pi has no direct relationship to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, though its similarities are clear.^[2] "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.^[3][4] 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. (Ref: Wiki, Lemaker.org)

Banana Pi is much faster than Raspberry PI.  However, Raspberry PI has a very large user group, many interesting projects can be found based on Raspberry PI (Raspberry PI community).

Buying Raspberry PI

http://hkstem.club

Buying Banana PI

I bought Banana PI in taobao.
Banana PI (RMB$245)
http://goo.gl/RE0fIA 

The complete buying guide for taobao can found below:
http://sea.taobao.com/howtobuy
https://www.techinasia.com/tmall-taobao-english-how-to-guide/

Cannot Buy yourself?

Contact us. hkstem.club@gmail.com