Best HostOS for Hass.io Docker on NUC?

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

Hi, I’m currently planning my move from RPi3 to NUC with Hass.io.
I have read a lot of threads in this community, reddit and others… however I’m still unsure about the HostOS to use for my NUC Adventure.

Can you recommend some OS over others? If so, why?

So far i have found 4 good ways:

Core OS -> Docker Hass.io — Core OS seems to have automatic updates for security in the background
Ubuntu -> Docker Hass.io — Ubuntu seems to be most used one, easy for beginners
Debian -> Docker Hass.io — Similar to Ubuntu but maybe a bit more light weight?
Proxmox -> Debian VM -> Docker Hass.io — Seems to be necessary to run an extra VM if one wants to use Docker with Proxmox. Appears to be very stable.

My requirements are currently very basic… I’d like to use Hass.io with all the Addons as before. On Top i’d like to run my Plex Server as Docker container and maybe some other containers in the future. It will be headless but it would be nice to have some GUI for remote managing…

2

Maybe unraid is something for you?

This is also an option: https://blog.linuxserver.io/2017/06/24/the-perfect-media-server-2017/
(I’d go the Ansible route, but that’s up to you)

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3

Ubuntu + Portainer(docker ui)+Cockpit(Linux server basic ui, nice for quick things)

Debian or Alpine would be OK but ubuntu support cockpit slightly better

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What do you use Cockpit for? What are the benefits of using it?

I’m running docker on Debian 9 on a NUC.

5

Cockpit has

basic docker management (start,stop,live log monitor, delete, etc

Basic storage management

Basic vm manage and monitor

Basic server management(add, delete user, setup ssh keys,etc)

It is basic toolset. I use cli mostly but it helps when I cannot figure out why container won’t start (live logs are helpful here) or quick look at what’s happening on server.

It was lightweight and not seem risky app so I use. Originally I tried things like freenas and omv but liked basic Linux best as GUI always suck in the end vs cli. Cockpit can manage multiple server in single ui so this worked well in my planned environment (app server, nvr, and need basic overview and control). I would never expose this outside of network but same is true for ssh.

6

OK thanks for the info.

Probably a bit overkill for my use right now tho.

7

Sorry for reviving a topic so old, but the contents of this apply to basically any x86_64 system so it’s still relevant.

I’ve sinced switched from unraid to basically what @tmjpugh was describing.

Ubuntu with Cockpit and Docker(-Compose)
BTRFS on everything except for ext4 dockerappdata&database SSD.
nvme boot ssd
multiple HDD’s pooled with MergerFS (on top of single BTRFS snapshots) and protected to failure with (btrfs-)Snapraid.
all scheduled to do regular tasks (backups/maintenance/scrubs/snapshots/etc) with systemd timers.

It works great but I’m alwasy open to new ideas.

8

Sidenote

Cockpit backports is usually most recent version.must also install the other things like cockpit-storage/backports and other packages. I don’t use network-manager so only allows monitor general throughput not manage ethernet

I use portainer as well for updating images. I don’t use “latest” images and prefer install specific versions instead