Update 1: effectively I’m looking for something like openwrt that works on standard pc hardware,
however if my understanding is correct openwrt is only for existing modem/routers that are hopefully still functional….. my ex-7000 Netgear has wifi connection issues, so it’s of no use.
So I have a ryzen 3400G with 16-32gigs of ram and b450 motherboard,I just need to buy a pcie Ethernet card or 2.
The wifi ( 2.4 and 5 bands ) needs to be
A) the bridge to the isp’s modem router (distance 15-30 meters)
B) access for phones and laptops
The Ethernet card will be for
- 2 TV’s
- 2 gaming computers
- Printer
- Servers ( photos, movies )
- Eufy Homebase 2 (security cameras)
What i’d ike it to have do
- Pihole or something equivalent ( for blocking trackers and ads )
- Dns forwarding/resolver / caching server ( I think pi-hole does something like this )
If I can achieve this first then I could look into of sense/open sense at a later date.
Running a cable from the ISP modem router to a network switch/ second router isn’t viable at this point in time
Given an update in original post
I’m not sure OpenWRT is actually the best choice here.
If you haven’t looked at OPNSense, it’s a FreeBSD based firewall/routing platform that works well on x86 and it has the capability of using your in-built wireless adapter as a wireless connection point.
While I haven’t actually done this (I wired up a a separate access point), I know it has the capability to leverage wireless technologies.
Setup is pretty straight forward.
Take this with a grain of salt because I use OPNSense, and I haven’t tried OpenWRT on an x86 platform.
This is the configuration I’m aiming for Making sure you're not a bot!
Doesn’t seem like it will let me add a link, thinks I’m a bot or something, so search for openwrt extender, repeater
Although I haven’t read all open sense documentation as yet, I believe it requires a hard wired connection.
Openwrt works on standard pc hardware too. Look for the images for x86_64, you probably want the efi squashfs ones, not the ext4. Extract the image from the archive with 7zip, Flash it on a usb thumbdrive with balena etcher or similar tools and you are done. You may or may not need to install some additional packages for ethernet (most are included in default image), you will need to install packages to support wifi.
This hardware is hilariously overpowered to run a home router. Any junk grade pc hardware can run laps around your netgear 7000.
The issue is wifi. Most cards you can get for pc are designed for a client device so they dont have many antennas and dont support beam forming or other features the chipsets used in wifi access points and routers do.
My recommendation is to get a wifi access point supported by openwrt for wifi
Sorry it’s the lowest powered system I got that is still *functional enough to do something with, the wifi is built into the motherboard , can’t remember if it also had Bluetooth
Next unused one is a ryzen 2600 and the one after that is a ryzen 3600
Maybe I could use something like fedora server ( only one I’m aware of working over wifi bridge ) and put in a couple of virtual machines.
Just not sure how to set that up or if I’m even capable of it
- Functional enough means at least built-in wifi works on Linux ( not sure about bsd ) , 2 motherboard ram slots, pci slots still actually work ( some of the motherboards had all 4 ram slots filled )
Hard drives on the other hand are all relative small but currently can hold my video library ( just not the ones I still need to transfer ) music and photo libraries
Thats ok, i just wanted to point that out. It is fine hardware for a little homelab and nas though.
Whats not ok is the wifi. Onboard wifi on motherboards is a laptop wifi module, which is meant for a client, not for an access point. It will get overwhelmed easily if you connect more than a handful of devices and they do more than check email. Its also not great for range.
Depending on what card that is, it may not even support “ap mode” so it may only work to connect to an existing wifi. Intel wifi cards didnt and maybe still dont, if you post the full motherboard name i can look up the specs and see whats the wifi card. (You can also do it yourself, the manufacturer website is public)
From what i understand you also want to use the same wifi card to connect to the wifi access point of your isp modem router. Thats another limitation, assuming the wifi module supports double use like this, you are halving the bandwidth because its using the same radio to transmit on two networks.
You may get it to work but its probably not as good as a 40-ish or less bucks wifi range extender with two radios (so one connects to the isp box and one generates the wifi for your devices). Some of these are supported by openwrt too.
Ill reiterate what i told above. Sadly if you need decent wifi access point hardware your only real choice is getting an actual access point device. Or wifi router or wifi extender or whatever other box uses dedicated wifi chipsets. This is one of the reasons why openwrt project is so important. Its the only way you can “secure” a box that has the radios made to generate a wifi network. The router can be whatever, it does not need to be the same box.
But anyway, once we know whats the card you have, i or someone else can tell you something more specific about what can be done
Your right I was wrong 
had to fish it out… the motherboard is primeb450m-k no wifi on it at all
I’ll have to check the other 2 motherboards now, I remember having to get pcie wifi card for one of them, didn’t think it was that one
$40 gear don’t think I have anywhere that sells that cheap lol…
I do however have 2 mesh(?) signal extenders ISP supplied but they only have 1 Ethernet port which is used to set-up them up on your network then be unplugged and moved X distance away from the modem/ router, these were supplied to attempt to compensate signal interference from other sources.
Hence my interested in reducing the devices on wifi foot print, being able to create an automated switch of a half dozen devices via Ethernet cable from 5g to 2.4g only reduces bandwidth throughput rather than having constant signal loss
well that’s my take anyway