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.