to be fair, I don’t exactly expect him to. What I desire is for him to be a little more apathetic about what DOES go on that he doesn’t see.
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It’s a fact that the manual installation procedures are no longer the main way that is used to install/setup Home Assistant. We are now down to 5 % (a year ago it was 10 %) of the installation which are using a venv while the usage of Docker and Alpine Linux is increasing. This indicates that a lot of new users simple choose Hass.io now.
I wouldn’t say that it’s “a massive problem”, it’s a common problem most projects will face at one point in time. You start to attract people who prefer to ask around instead of spending 5 min reading the docs. Of course, we can do better but we already serve details about Hass.io in at least three locations and one is the FAQ.
I don’t know which FAQ you’re looking at, but there is not a single mention of hassio in the official one, nor any reference to any deifferences between the install methods…
Sorry, it’s the Glossary.
Installation methods in the FAQ? Why should we do that? The Installation of Home Assistant is covering this (which is, by the way, linked from the Getting started guide). I would say that it’s out of scope for us compare the installation methods. In some cases using Vagrant is much better than venv, in others not. The problem is that without knowing what the user wants to do, we will always be wrong.
If a newbie want to know the differences/advantages/disadvantages between an installation method, let’s say, on Fedora and armbian, then he/she should go with Hass.io. Choosing an operating system is delicate topic and with Hass.io the people don’t need to worry because it’s about Home Assistant and not the underlying stuff like containers, package management, etc.
The focus needs to be to get people started quickly and working with a Raspberry Pi (or any other single board computer) is doable even for a Windows user who never has seen a command-line.
The Installation section in the documentation is for the people who will become often contributors to Home Assistant. Because we very much care about those users we try to cover as much operating system as we can and make it easy to get started. We don’t need to take them by the hand and guide them through the whole process. A couple of pullet points are usually enough. They will never go with the Getting started guide because they want to run it on their operating system.
@fabaff "Installation methods in the FAQ? Why should we do that?
We’re not talking about installation methods, we’re talking about the fundamental difference between homeassistant and hassio.
It should be in the FAQ because it is a Frequently Asked Question.
As per my comments above, and those of many others here on the forums and over on reddit, this is a problem. The community is simply trying to help people who come here to understand what they’re doing.
Unfortunately, every time we try, there is a denial that there is a problem, and we just get told (quite rudely in some cases) that hassio is the Bobby-dazzler and to shove off.
Hint taken, I’ll just link any further newcomers to your post above in future and save my breath.
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Ok, let’s add it
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Thank you 
thats 1 conclusion that you can draw.
another conclusion you can draw is that people just follow the get started direction that lets them believe that hassio and home assistant are 1 and the same thing.
your conclusion is only valid if you offer the choice BEFORE people start to install.
now its like:
page 1:
if you want to install home assistant then you need a raspberry and install hassio
1 line there that says: if you are advanced (in what??) then look at this page
page 2:
look here, you have a lot of options and ways to install home assistant.
its that way of presenting that let more people use hassio, and after that they think, they have the only way, or they dont want to uninstall and chose another way anymore.
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The Getting started guide was change around two months ago to focus on Hass.io. So, no, it didn’t help to offer more options.
We offer a dozen methods to install Home Assistant. This doesn’t brought us diversity.
Picking a random word out of context is for sure not clear. We could repeat Linux again but will not make a difference. Feel free to re-word the two sections in question and submit a PR.
The alternative is presented at the very top of the guide. We don’t hide it or let the users perform an installation on their Raspberry Pi and say at the end: “Look here, we have other way to do it”.
You still don’t get it though.
This isn’t about what “alternative installers” are available. This is about explaining the DIFFERENCE between hassio and the other installation methods.
I lost count how many threads we get here and on Reddit of people asking about installing some random package on hassio. Or how to “enable this component” because the component instructions state (incorrectly) that you must install certain packages before they work.
This whole thing is about explaining the difference. Giving users options is great but if you can’t explain what those differences are, it’s all for naught
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On the “alternative installation” page at the top is this:
Beginners should check our Getting started guide first. This is for users that require advanced installations.
I disagree with how this is presented. There should be a clear distinction of why you would select these other options. It seems as though you’re trying to scare new users into using hassio…
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i reread it 1 more time and probably should have done that before i did write my last reply.
i still think that this part:
Hass.io is our own all in one solution that turns your Raspberry Pi into the ultimate home automation hub.
does not really make clear that hassio and home assistant are 2 different things, and what hassio actually is.
a small part which tells the (dis)advantages from chosing hassio (besides just telling that if you are experienced in linux, you have other options) on that place would save a whole lot off questions on the forum, in my eyes.
or a change in the title (like “install home assistant with hassio” instead of just “install home assistant”) could already make a big difference.
i am not a native english speaking person, so i dont think i am really the person to offer a decent doc change, i can however tell here why i think that there are a lot off confused people on the forum.
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I think the contents of my PR mudied the waters unnecessarily. The initial problem is quotes like this
and
I can understand keeping the Getting Started page simple, but it does need to indicate more prominently that Home Assistant is not only hass.io .
Even the change made two days ago adding the term or if you have no Raspberry Pi at hand has helped significantly. I think @ReneTode suggestions would also make things clearer.
Perhaps the Which Installation Method list from my PR could go at the top of the installation page as it seems like good information.
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Hi there,
I am noob in that matter, but a bit of experience in Linux as a hobby. I am disabled and find out this kind of platform has HUGE potential to help me with daily living duties. So my son has raspberry pi 3 with arch and installed for me homeassistant python method in virtual environment, which is safe as he described that I can not screw his arch on pi, honest boy must admit. Things seem to work well, as I managed to start some simple editing of confing yalm file and manage to get this front page:
However one thing we can not work out is the lack of 3 dot menu on the top right corner of the HA.
My question is did we screw something or this is how it is when installed not via hass.io?
Probably I am another victim of lack of understanding differences as in the topic.
Thank you for you work.
Cheers
This is EXACTLY the kind of confusion we are talking about.
No, if you install home assistant via ANY other method than installing HASSIO, you will not have ANY hassio ‘features/menus’
Does that mean that it is not possible to install addons without HASSIO? Iam new to Homeassistant and it has been running now for a few days on my Synology nas (without docker support). When the difference between the installion methods is so big, its IMHO neccesary to get this information from the “getting started” page.
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Add-ons in HASSIO are nothing more than preconfigured DOCKER containers that do the same things that you can do yourself with some linux knowledge or with Docker. They are simply easier for most people to use the Add-ons. If you are running home assistant by ANY other method than hassio, you will have to do those things manually.
This is exactly our point and what so many people are burying their heads in the sand over…for some reason the developers and powers that be, do not want to help people UNDERSTAND the differences…
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That is exactly what I did!
I thought that hassio would be the easiest way to install Home Assistant on a RPi. As my little project needs to interface to a heat pump, I already knew I would need interactive access to Python at least.
It took a while for me to realise that I had gone down the wrong path.
I can see why hassio is being promoted for ease of use though. I think it should be added to the FAQ and made clear on the installation page.
Without that clarity, the regular contributors of this brilliant community will be answering the same questions many times.
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Ok so I do not need addon shop as they can be installed by editing yaml config, even I got idea how to do that.
But what I am missing hidden under those 3 dot menu?
Is the way to add this to python installation? Or maybe it is good as it is now?
BTW. I did not use capital letter in word HUGE to make laughter of it but to underline usefulness of that kind of project fro people with disability.
Cheers
Not really…the add-ons are NOT home assistant components. They are separate ‘applications’.
no. If you want the ‘add-ons’ you have a couple of choices:
- figure out what add-ons you want, and manually configure them on your OS as applications.
- install hassio
- run everything from docker and set up the applications in docker containers
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