Which version do I need for an intel based install

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello again everyone.
I bought a cheap Intel based Mini PC, and want to install OpenWrt on it.
When I look on the download page in the X86 section I see numerous install version available and am not sure what the differences are.
I see this: openwrt-25.12.4-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined.img.gz
I see this: openwrt-25.12.4-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined-efi.img.gz
I see this: openwrt-25.12.4-x86-64-generic-ext4-rootfs.img.gz

I want to be able to install adguardkhome and expand the drive so I have no issues
with running out of space because of logs building up or block lists taking up all the space resulting in a system that can not run or boot because it has no room to do so.

I also see a section in the downloads for realtek, which is the chipset on my intel device,
so am even more confused now as to which option to choose from.
My Mini PC is in the post, it is an older model with a Celeron 4100 processor and a
Realtek 8168 chipset. I read online people have got this to work with Openwrt and for the
money I paid am going to give it a go as I am still having difficulty with my Raspberry Pi install of OpenWrt and want a very low power device / 6 watt TDP in this case to see if X86 brings me better luck.

Any advise welcomed, thanks to all.

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What boot device will be using in your mini PC?

Does it support EFI boot or "legacy" MBR style boot?

Will it boot from a USB stick?

Assuming it will boot from USB and is modern enough to support EFI then simply download openwrt-25.12.4-x86-64-generic-ext4-combined-efi.img.gz and follow the instructions on the page that @frollic linked to unpack it and write it to a USB drive (note that any previous contents of the USB stick will be forever inaccessible) and you should be able to boot straight into OpenWRT from the USB stick.

Personally I find it more convenient to put a minimal copy of Fedora Server on x86 machines so that I get grub installed and have a "full" OS for debugging/downloading stuff and configure grub to boot to OpenWRT as default (in this case you need the kernel and root filesystem individual downloads) but you do need to be a lot more familiar with Liux installation and configuring grub for that.

4

I had an old decommissioned PC just added a $10 Ethernet card so i have two ethernet ports.
I installed Proxmox so I can have multiple VM's with different versions of OpenWRT.

I installed x86-64-generic-ext4-combined-efi.img.gz in these VM's

5

I bought one of these, it sure beats Raspberry Pi prices. https://www.ebay.ie/itm/298361201068 8GB of ram, I have more here if I need it, it has a 120GB drive, I will be adding my own 128GB drive. It is low powered which is why I want it, only 6 watt TDP.
I have USB cases that the drive plugs into so I can access the drive from a PC in order to expand the drive with Gparted.
I might experiment with partitioning the drive and installing an os on there so I can use it for partitioning the OpenWrt install. But am concerned if I do this it might interfere with reboots after power failure, I will want it to always boot back into OpenWrt again, I do not have it yet so can't tell what the Bios is capable of, other than it has auto reboot after power failure.
There is two 1Gig Ethernet ports there, so will be fine for my use case.

6

Old PC;s are good for this, I have a few too, but too big and sore on power to be using so I got a cheap one off ebay.

7

Fully agree, it is just a testbed and runs only when I am testing, besides I have plenty of solar power :slight_smile:

It is the proxmox I wanted to share, very useful if you want to have a backup, just fire up the next VM if you borked one