Why are you so hell-bent on not installing Linux? From the sound of what you are saying, it is clear that you are no stranger to Linux, and can support it just fine apart from the HA side itself, which will be your major learning curve.
Your reluctance to use HA supervised comes from some idea in the back of your mind that it’s going to take away power from the core HA code. I can understand the purist attitude, because I’m of a similar mindset myself. However, step back a moment and consider two things:
- If you do manage to run HAOS on the laptop - very doubtful, given you are using a non-UEFI machine, you have an unsupported installation and you will run into a wall every single time you try to get help from the community.
- Everybody running HAOS on a Pi is running a full operating system plus HAOS as a managed appliance, and does not run into horsepower problems. On the laptop, installing Debian 12 and a supervised install will be more than you need, so much so that other people use an installation like that to run HA as well as a full server application such as NextCloud, and still have more horsepower available to HA than the most powerful Pi currently available. In spite of this, you now have a supported install, and you’ll be far more comfortable managing and maintaining the operating systems. I ran HAOS on a Pi. I hated it because it is so restrictive - you can’t SSH into the machine to do anything outside of the HA installation. I prefer knowing what’s happening under the hood, but HAOS is complete black box, intentionally so, because it is intended to be a managed appliance for the masses with very little computer knowledge.
Before you write it off, give supervised a try from the Community Instructions.
You can always kill it if you really don’t manage it, but once you get HA running, you’ll most likely be focusing on your home rather than your laptop.
Just be aware there’s a bug in the instructions. When you are following the instructions, in the apt get lines, do not install systemd-resolved.
Whichever way you decide to go, good luck.
Best Regards,
Richard.