Support level per board (Armbian board pages, at the time of writing)
| Board | Armbian support level |
|---|---|
| Banana Pi M5 | Standard support |
| Banana Pi M7 | Standard support |
| BananaPi BPI-M4-Zero | Standard support |
| Banana Pi M2S | Standard support |
| BananaPi BPI-F3 (RISC-V) | Standard support |
| Banana Pi R4 | Community support |
What the levels mean (maintainer duties, testing, what happens when nobody maintains a board) is defined in Armbian's board support rules; the overview item on OS choice for Raspberry Pi alternatives summarizes them. Support levels change over time, so check the page when you decide.
Why it matters: vendor images age
Banana Pi publishes images per board on its docs pages, but they aren't always current. On the BPI-M5 page, the listed Ubuntu image is Ubuntu 20.04 server, dated 2023-08-30. For a device that stays on the network for years, a distribution with ongoing updates is the safer base.
Newer Banana Pi boards lean on Armbian directly: the BPI-M4 Zero page lists Ubuntu and Debian images built with Armbian and links both Banana Pi's fork of the Armbian build system and upstream Armbian.
Recommendation
- General-purpose boards (M5, M7, M4 Zero, M2S, F3): start with Armbian; its Standard support is the best long-term option these boards have.
- Router boards (R3, R4, OpenWrt One): use OpenWrt, which has device pages and releases for them. Armbian lists the R4 only with Community support.
- Download links: Banana Pi's pages note that some older Google Drive links stopped working after a Google security update. If an image link is dead, look for the new link on the same page instead of third-party mirrors.