I wrote an in-depth posting about installing V18 openwrt on the RB493G and that article is entirely applicable to the RB450G too.

As of November 2018, openwrt is at version 18.06.1 - and it is now remarkably simpler to install openwrt on the Mikrotik RouterBoards. When you read this posting, you will see there were a LOT of steps to get openwrt installed on the RB450G back in 2014. Update: I originally wrote this posting in 2014 when openwrt was at version 'Attitude Adjustment'. I'm following the openwrt build instructions found here: Following is the process I've used to get the open source Linux openwrt distribution running on the RB450G. Since The Mikrotik OS is proprietary and does not lend itself to modification or augmentation, I'd like to get an open source version of Linux running on this hardware to customize the RB450G for industrial applications. The irony of the full feature set is that this router is difficult to learn for industrial applications: we simply don't need most of the features and their immense routing flexibility is not used for an industrial application. These routers give Cisco a run for their money at a fraction of the cost.

They ship with a proprietary Mikrotik OS that has a surprisingly full feature set for router applications. I've been using the RB450G for industrial applications and found them to be reliable. They are designed to be used in some pretty challenging outdoor environments so they have to be robust. It has a serial port, SD card slot, will run from a 24V DC supply and is rated for -40 to +70 degrees C.

Its a powerhouse small router with a 680 MHz MIPS processor, 256MB RAM and 512MB NAND flash. The Mikrotik RB450G is a high quality 10/100/1000 5 port router available in a steel case.

Mikrotik os virtualbox