OK, finally managed to boot it from SATA. The process was the following:
1. Created a VM in virtualbox with just a CD as mass storage device
2. added the sata drive to it via an USB-to-SATA adapter as USB mass storage device under settings / ports / usb
3. booted the ISO image downloaded from mikrotik.com
4. finish installation as per screen instructions
5. safely disconnect the USB disk from the computer
then connect it to the SATA port on the APU board, connect console, set your terminal emulator's rate to 115200.
routeros will boot, and seemingly hang after displaying loading.initrd message.
the console defaults to 9600 after routerOS has been booted. the usual 2 beeps confirm, that it is up and running.
so altogether i managed to install RouterOS on it, but this was like a conversation with Zuzu Petals.
after login i was greeted with an empty device:
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys resource pci print detail
0 device="04:00.0" name="BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev: 3)"
vendor="Broadcom Corporation" category="Network controller"
vendor-id="0x14e4" device-id="0x4328" irq=0
memory=0xFE800000-0xFE8FFFFF,0xFE700000-0xFE7FFFFF
1 device="03:00.0" name="unknown device (rev: 3)" vendor="Intel Corporation"
category="Ethernet controller" vendor-id="0x8086" device-id="0x1539" irq=0
memory=0xFE600000-0xFE6FFFFF,0xFE620000-0xFE623FFF io=0x3000-0x3FFF
2 device="02:00.0" name="unknown device (rev: 3)" vendor="Intel Corporation"
category="Ethernet controller" vendor-id="0x8086" device-id="0x1539" irq=0
memory=0xFE500000-0xFE5FFFFF,0xFE520000-0xFE523FFF io=0x2000-0x2FFF
3 device="01:00.0" name="unknown device (rev: 3)" vendor="Intel Corporation"
category="Ethernet controller" vendor-id="0x8086" device-id="0x1539" irq=0
memory=0xFE400000-0xFE4FFFFF,0xFE420000-0xFE423FFF io=0x1000-0x1FFF
4 device="00:18.5" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1585" irq=0
5 device="00:18.4" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1584" irq=0
6 device="00:18.3" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1583" irq=0
7 device="00:18.2" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1582" irq=0
8 device="00:18.1" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1581" irq=0
9 device="00:18.0" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1580" irq=0
10 device="00:14.7" name="unknown device (rev: 1)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="SD Host controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x7813" irq=0 memory=0xFEB25600-0xFEB256FF
11 device="00:14.3" name="unknown device (rev: 17)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="ISA bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x780e" irq=0
12 device="00:14.0" name="unknown device (rev: 66)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="SMBus" vendor-id="0x1022"
device-id="0x780b" irq=0
13 device="00:13.0" name="unknown device (rev: 57)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="USB Controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x7808" irq=0 memory=0xFEB25500-0xFEB255FF
14 device="00:12.0" name="unknown device (rev: 57)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="USB Controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x7808" irq=0 memory=0xFEB25400-0xFEB254FF
15 device="00:11.0" name="unknown device (rev: 64)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="SATA controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x7800" irq=0 memory=0xFEB25000-0xFEB253FF
io=0x4000-0x400F
16 device="00:10.0" name="unknown device (rev: 17)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="USB Controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x7814" irq=0 memory=0xFEB22000-0xFEB23FFF
17 device="00:08.0" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Encryption controller"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1537" irq=0
memory=0xFEB00000-0xFEB1FFFF,0xFE900000-0xFE9FFFFF,0xFEB24000-0xFEB24FFF,
0xFEA00000-0xFEAFFFFF,0xFEB20000-0xFEB21FFF
18 device="00:02.5" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="PCI bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1439" irq=0 io=0x1F0-0x1F7
19 device="00:02.4" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="PCI bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1439" irq=0
20 device="00:02.3" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="PCI bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1439" irq=0
21 device="00:02.2" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="PCI bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1439" irq=0
22 device="00:02.0" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x156b" irq=0
23 device="00:00.0" name="unknown device (rev: 0)"
vendor="Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]" category="Host bridge"
vendor-id="0x1022" device-id="0x1566" irq=0
[admin@MikroTik] > /interface print
Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME TYPE ACTUAL-MTU L2MTU
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys resource irq print
Flags: ro - read-only
# IRQ USERS CPU ACTIVE-CPU COUNT
0 ro 4 serial auto 1 279
1 9 acpi auto 0 0
2 14 ide0 auto 1 0
3 15 ide1 auto 2 0
4 18 usb2 auto 3 44
usb1
5 19 ahci auto 0 5 432
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys resource cpu print detail
0 cpu="cpu0" load=0% irq=0% disk=0%
1 cpu="cpu1" load=0% irq=0% disk=0%
2 cpu="cpu2" load=0% irq=0% disk=0%
3 cpu="cpu3" load=0% irq=0% disk=0%
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys reso print
uptime: 4m5s
version: 6.43rc12 (testing)
build-time: May/11/2018 09:08:21
free-memory: 1873.5MiB
total-memory: 1893.7MiB
cpu: AMD
cpu-count: 4
cpu-frequency: 998MHz
cpu-load: 0%
free-hdd-space: 14.7GiB
total-hdd-space: 14.8GiB
write-sect-since-reboot: 2280
write-sect-total: 2280
architecture-name: x86
board-name: x86
platform: MikroTik
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys health print
state: disabled
state-after-reboot: enabled
[admin@MikroTik] > /system hardware print
multi-cpu: yes
[admin@MikroTik] > /sys routerboard print
routerboard: no
that is no external USB support, no ethernet support. whatever supported mPCIe cards you insert they will probably work though. but without wired ethernet support, this is just cumbersome.
