Home Assistant Installation Methods

I’m late to the party regarding seeing this post. It’s a great table and should be part of the official docs

Fantastisk overview, should definitely be among the official documentation. Can anyone explain why one would choose Supervised (like I currently have on Ubuntu) over OS in a general matter?

And for my specific case, I don’t use the computer and don’t need to use the computer to anything other than Home Assistant. I don’t know how to utilise Docker and need to Google every step involving Ubuntu and Docker.

The best reason to choose supervised over OS is if your hardware doesn’t have a prebuilt OS image for it (like the mac mini I run on). Some other reasons I have are that I want to run RAID disks and none of the recommended hardware has 2 drive bays and I wouldn’t be sure that HassOS would support it. Also I have one component that needs access to the system to receive messages from systemd. I’m not sure this would work under hassos… There are many more reasons but those are the ones off the top of my head.

I don’t quite understand what you mean with prebuilt OS image? I thought it was as simple as download the image and use BalenaE to burn the image on the SSD? Or what am I not getting?

Yes it is that simple if you are on one of the supported hardware devices. If you aren’t on one of those devices, you will have to install the OS and supervised homeassistant yourself. Which isn’t really that hard, but harder than just dumping the image to disk and booting from it.

Other option is installing in a VM of course. Then you don’t need to worry about the OS of the host. But you will lose some performance and have a tougher time with some hardware devices (people have really been struggling to get Google Coral and HGI80 working in VM).

I understand, thank you.
I currently run Supervised on an Intel Nuc. Before installing I quickly tried flashing my SSD with the OS image, but my computer didn’t find anything to boot. So I moved on to Ubuntu. Perhaps I’ll try again. I like the idea of running OS as it’s supported and future proof, and don’t deal with Ubuntu.

I have this problem to, and I am struggling to find a solution. Installing ubuntu will I typ :stuck_out_tongue:

I tried Proxmox but I use zwave and zigbee USB stick. It wasn’t reliable for me.

An excellent summary. The only comment I’d make is that the big red crosses make Core look like a stupid option; whereas in my opinion, not having to deal with Supervisor or Docker is a big advantage. I’m free to run other stuff on my Pi yet interact with HA without having complications from Docker interfaces. HA is just another application running on my hardware, alongside, for example, AppDaemon in another virtualenv.

I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is familiar with Linux and virtualenvs. Perhaps neutrally-coloured “yes/no” for Supervisor and Docker (and perhaps the OS) would be fairer?

MUCH LATER UPDATE: I’m now running Docker on a Synology NAS, and hereby declare that it’s awesome.

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Literally, check-marks and crosses simply indicate what is included/excluded, respectively. This convention is widely enployed when comparing features.

Originally, I used Yes/No and the table failed to make a strong visual statement that the first two installation methods include more than the last two. Given that some new users fail to understand why their Docker/Core installation lacks Supervisor, I felt it was necessary to make the distinction abundantly clear.

I don’t want to start another argument here but this comment is totally unfounded. I run a Supervised install and the ‘Supervisor’ for me is literally just another menu item where LOTS of handy functions are found (snapshots, add-ons etc.) Far from being something I have ‘to deal with’. Likewise with Docker. As far as I as the user see it, I’m basically unaware that Docker is used in the background. I don’t have to do ANYTHING Docker related, ever (apart from a single line of text during the install process). Again, nothing ‘to deal with’. That comment could potentially put people off for no reason. Surely running virtual environments is more hard work in terms of setup and maintenance. End rant. Lets leave it at that.

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As someone who is about to rebuild his Hassio install I found this table invaluable. I actually relate to @Troon’s post, and getting out of the docker paradigm for pretty much the same reasons is why I’m personally looking to rebuild in the first place so that specific column makes it very clear what my options are.

I do understand the sentiment against using a “warning red cross” but it’s probably correct as those who actively want to move away from using docker probably won’t mind too much and for everyone else having a supervised set up is probably a net positive.

The one thing I’m still missing in the overall picture is what “supervised” actually means, feature wise. There’s a scattering of features listed in various places (add-ons, snapshots, etc) but not a definitive list that I could find. If there is one I’d love to be pointed to it?

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One thing that I am always struggling to find is where the config files are in the different install types. If you see the benefit for the community could you also add the path of the config files to the table?
Really helpful collection!
Thanks
B

That’s already shown in the documentation: Configuring Home Assistant

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Is this supposed to happen?
I am running Supervised on Ubuntu.

Trying to update two addons and getting the following:

20-12-03 16:44:57 WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.jobs] 'AddonManager.update' blocked from execution, system is not healthy

20-12-03 16:46:10 WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.jobs] 'AddonManager.update' blocked from execution, system is not healthy

Can I no longer update addons because I am running on Ubuntu?

No, your system is unhealthy, which is not the same as unsupported. There are currently lots of people facing this issue, can’t find the github issue at the moment.
Check if your docker version is up-to-date and that you have all the latest updates for your ububtu OS.

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@pullb0x, I had the exact same issue just prior to the new version number scheme, and was working up until this very update.

Home Assistant Core 2021.1.4
You are currently running version 2021.1.3 

Basically SSH into your Home Assistant Ubuntu machine. Run the commands

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo reboot

When your machine comes back online, re-run the upgrade through the supervisor section.
I just did this on my Ubuntu virtual guest in my house and it worked fine. I noticed during the Ubuntu upgrade that the docker packages were getting upgraded, so that might be the problem.

Version supervisor-2021.01.4
Newest Version supervisor-2021.01.4 
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@DarthKegRaider thank you for the feedback.
I did sudo apt-get update with a reboot and that did it for me.
Not sure why.

An amazingly clear and succinct summary of the various (I’ve found confusing) HA installation options … thank you!

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: New to home assitant installation

Question: What is the easiest way to go from Ubuntu + Home Assistant Core (installed through apt) to Supervised? Is the shell script mentioned above included in the Core package? (I’m not a fan of containers.)

Why is there no ISO option to install Home Assistant OS to standard x86 machines?