OpenWRT - Install OpenWRT 21.02 on Mikrotik RB750Gr3

In this video, we are going to install OpenWRT 21.02 on the Mikrotik RouterBoard 750Gr3 (Hex). Most of the routers from Mikrotik use netboot via tftp to install/recovery the firmware and we will do the same for OpenWRT. This video will also show you how to downgrade your RouterOS version to 6.49.2 and backup your RouterOS license key, before proceeding with the OpenWRT installation with TinyPXE. Besides that, we will do a quick speedtest to see the CPU usage. At the end, we will also enable hardware & software flow offloading to see if there is any improvement in the performance.

Video timeframe:
00:00 - Intro
00:15 - Installation Guide for RB750Gr3 & Download OpenWRT Firmware
00:55 - Downgrade/Upgrade RouterOS to 6.49.2
02:16 - Backup RouterOS License Key
02:51 - Setup PC's Network Adapter IP Address
03:49 - Setup & Start TinyPXE Application
04:59 - Start OpenWRT Installation with Netboot
06:59 - Access LuCI & Flash Sysupgrade Image
10:03 - Configure PPPoE with VLAN on RB750Gr3
14:14 - Speedtest & CPU Usage Overview
14:17 - Another Speedtest with Software & Hardware Flow Offloading

Resources:

Thanks for watching and see you in the next video!

[izrailmoiseevic]

Thank you for that clear instruction!
One IMPORTANT note:
Sometimes its impossible to setup latest version of OpenWRT and you need to try older version.
You didn't see any errors. Logs in TinyPXE will looks fine and when you change port from 1 to 2 you can't reach address 192.168.1.1. So in that case take older version of openwrt.
Also you can try other subversion of RouterOS v6.xx

[RavingMad]

I'd never flash a MikroTik product with OpenWRT, despite the fact that I love using it as much as RouterOS. The reason is the motivation for me to move out of standard consumer grade stuff in the first place. I got tired of perfectly good hardware losing updates, lacking performance, getting bricked by official firmware, and hardware getting EoL and deprecated despite being powerful enough for my use case. Secondly the fact that the stock firmware wouldn't allow me to take full advantage of the hardware.

Both RouterOS and OpenWRT solves these problems for me. Both have life long updates and both let me get as much as I can (to the best of my abilities) out of the hardwares. As such if RouterOS is already there, I don't see any value in switching it out for OpenWRT.

Love the video regardless, because love the endless possibilities with both platforms.

[ckthmpson]

I have one of these routers (the Mikrotik RB750Gr3 HEX) and have been considering flashing OpenWRT. I bought this router because I thought there was support for Zerotier on Mikrotik. However, turns out this is only true for the Miktrotik ARM based routers...not the mmips (Mediatech) based Mikrotik routers. I've since switched from Zerotier to Tailscale, but still no way to run either (Zerotier or Tailscale) on a Mikrotik RB750Gr3 when it's running RouterOS. Hoping that with OpenWRT, I can have either Zerotier or Tailscale running on the device.

Very good video. Thank you for sharing...

[KomentarAna]

What benefit or advantage OpenWrt than mikrotik?

[williamsajiwa]

This is very interesting I like these units and combining with OpenWRT that’s awesome👍🏽

[digitaljdr]

Very nice! thank you for the video - worked on my Mikrotik Hex S (RB760iGS)

[gingerbladebl]

What’s advantages of openwrt vs router os? Router OS imho is way more powerful than openwrt, despite all the complexities but it also comes with a lot of functionality (yes, some of it are proprietary. I have installed openwrt before but not so impressed despite easy configuration in the beginning but not much use later on.

[pichonPoP]

Thanks for sharing this. I'll purchase this one at the end of this month.

[sontran]

RouterOS is very good, but its too hard to configure.

[DodheexMentawaiz]

how about rb750gr2??can i follow this step from this video??

[MetrakBuddha]

Thank you for this excellent tutorial. 🤟

[NoONE-bkud]

I have a question, in my country we use ADSL in our homes but the problem is i have two routers i install in them openwrt but openwrt says that DSL port will not work so there is a way please to use PPPOE in this routers like a converter or something else

[Theflow]

I have done everything but when I turn off the router and turn it on again, routerOs appears again, it deletes the openwrt

[ashrafkhaleelibrahim]

Great as usual, thanks
By the way, does the openwrt wifi range similar to the factory firmware?

[tronguco]

Cảm ơn bạn vì video hướng dẫn chi tiết. Mình còn dư 1 em 750gr3 cũng đang định chuyển qua openwrt để chạy Adguard, Iptv, .... Không biết openwrt trên 750gr3 hoạt động có ổn định không?

[LouiseBrooksBob]

Very useful, thanks!

It would be nice to know if this router's hardware support for IPSEC VPN tunnel encryption is available with DD-WRT.

[rodrigosteinhorst]

great tutorial, I have a question, I would like to install it on the RB4011, is it possible?

[orfeous]

What are the usb port supposed to be used for? Theres nothing about it in documentation. What does the mode button do? Nothing on that in documentation as well

[ruioliveira]

Dude, thanks for you work, but why the hell do you use Openwrt if Mikrotik router os is a powerfull software??

[Harb]

How does this router compare to the NanoPi R4S?