The funny thing is I didn’t even know this was an issue until this thread.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was confusion around hassio/nonhassio/venv/etc but I didn’t know there was dissent even down to the words we in the community were using to try to sort out the mess created by the naming of the different versions of the software.
Oh yeah… “Hassio in Docker” is a hanging offence… it’s even worse on Discord.
Ok I think the smart-@$$/serious question has been resolved… 
Let me try to figure out the cryptic message message you are trying to provide here…
if you are saying that hassio is a completely constructed “system” of docker containers then I respectfully refer you to the post above.
Wrong.
hassio is a different version of HA. Both of which can be installed in docker. Hassio just happens to also be installed alongside of another docker container called a supervisor.
Wow! I guess I’m glad I never gotten into that.
I’d have been banned a long time ago.
Home Assistant itself is exactly the same… It’s just a different install method.
Yes, the underlying software is the same but I am trying to show that there is a difference between a vanilla “Home Assistant” (installed in docker or venv or whatever) and Home Assistant with the functionality of Hassio thrown on top.
As I said My HA installed in Docker is not the same HA as Hassio since my HA doesn’t have the additional features that Hassio provides. So it’s different.
Hassio uses the same version of HA anyone else uses.
a completely constructed “system” of docker containers
This is exactly what it is. Your version has the whole world of dockerhub to explore as “addons” which you have to integrate to HA yourself. Users in the docker channel of discord do this all the time. There’s a lot more flexibility and freedom running it this way.
The Hassio ecosystem is a more curated version of that. Less freedom, and more convenience. And yes, it adds some management and backup features as a result of this control and fencing in/walling off, whatever you want to call it. It takes docker and makes it a tool for a more specific purpose (home automation using home assistant), in a similar way to how unraid has an “app store” which also uses docker and it’s own templating system for images/containers.
There are images for each architecture (qemux86-64, armfh, etc). This is simply a matter of the queue and the time it takes to render them. Sometimes the vanilla docker image is first. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it stalls halfway through the list for whatever reason.
Perhaps it’s exactly the same software, but since it does not detect that it’s running in a HassIO “environment” it does not display those features?
It certainly looks and act different, but it might be the same code, just presenting itself differently based on the environment it detects.
that’s not possible.
As I said above, the underlying software is the same but hassio modifies the HA instance and it adds the functionality of the hassio add-ons and interaction with the supervisor.
My Home Assistant doesn’t have the hassio link in the sidebar. I don’t have the ability in my Home assistant config to just add hassio: to the configuration.yaml to get tht functionality added to my HA instance. When I update my docker image to the latest one I don’t pull exactly the same image as another user who runs hassio is pulling. I know trhat because there are times when the hassio image is ready before the non-hassio HA image is ready It’s different
Could anyone point out to me in the base image for the docker HA install (not Hassio) where it is directed to look for the “environment” before deciding which additions are enabled to turn my non-hassio into hassio?
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
As far as I know, it’s all the same code: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant
It seems like there’s some kind of HassIO discovery: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/tree/00dc7216093abd099b1e4a58a14876cc9ed2896e/homeassistant/components/hassio
it’s the supervisor container that gives you the addons… HA is HA regardless of the install method.
…and waitnig for this thread to get locked… 
Yes. It’s the supervisor that gives you the ability to use/install them, the base support for the left-side panel and the menus are baked into every HA install.
There’s only one Home-Assistant codebase (AFAIK), and only one polymer-UI codebase (AFAIK). The support for the HassIO menus and whatnot is baked into every HA install. It only shows them when it detects you are running HassIO.
But the supervisor is useless without the ability of HA to interact with it.
So here is a test…
I have a non-hassio HA installed in docker.
At one point I was going to try hassio so I ran the GLI script and it installed three more docker containers (and the install script installs a whole lot more folders inside the hassio folder than a non-hassio install does so right there it tells me that it’s ultimately not the same software). Then I decided I didn’t want to use hassio and just disabled the hassio & supervisor containers. But they are still on my system.
If I re-enable that supervisor container how would I go about converting my non-hassio HA docker container into Hassio without running the hassio container again?
You can’t.
I don’t know what else to say except that HA is the same regardless of install method.
I’m all done polluting this thread with my take. There’s going to be work done on clarifying the description of what is what,very soon, and we’ll just see how that goes. I think the “dissent” being attributed here is a little exaggerated. We (the community) have been dealing with this for a long time and will continue to improve upon it, I expect.
This diagram shows the supervisor and its role in managing add-ons.
And this explains the comms between each. https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/en/hassio_addon_communication.html
